The Africa Climate x Nature Salon on resourcing the frontlines of the climate movement.
A young boy searches for gold particles in the final stages of panning and sorting at an artisanal mining site in Mongbwalu, Ituri province, on June 16, 2026. (Photo by Jospin Mwisha / AFP)
I will always remember visiting an Indigenous community in the Congo Basin rainforest that kept up a poster of an international programme they had once been funded by. They told me they hoped the programme would come back, but by the poster’s tattered edges, it seemed like they had been waiting a long time for the return.
The hope and grief of that moment have stayed with me, as it so clearly exemplifies how communities at the frontlines of climate change, deforestation, and ecological crisis are often brought into philanthropic initiatives, only to be left behind when institutional money and priorities change. And when funding strategies suddenly shift based on a change of heart or political realities, communities are the ones left most vulnerable to absorb the shocks. They are asked to participate, trust, and adapt to programmes, but then are oftentimes expected to reconcile with the consequences alone when the world shifts and funding runs out for them.
Undeniably, climate philanthropy now operates in a moment of growing geopolitical change, environmental volatility, and technological disruption, yet many climate funding strategies still feel like they are being designed for an older world that does not exist anymore. If climate philanthropy is serious about creating a transformative impact, funding strategies must be designed to support sovereignty for frontline communities to continue work despite shifts from outside forces.
Adapting climate funding strategies for the world we live in
Funding is being pushed to adapt in a world that is becoming harder to predict. There is increasing pressure to sustain momentum on achieving climate and energy goals as others draw back. Over much of the past decade, foundations enjoyed confidence that their investments would scale at catalytic levels with support from public and private partners. But in recent months, that’s no longer the case—several of the largest climate programmes by major governments have been eliminated or gutted, with research showing that programme and grant cuts disproportionately affect frontline communities.
This moment is reshaping where philanthropy looks for trust and resilience. But it also creates an opportunity to rethink where strategic insight is
Lived experience is a sound strategic direction
Too often, frontline communities are only approached to share inspirational storytelling or act as consultative partnerships for larger organisations to meet local involvement requirements associated with receiving many large grants. While this framing once helped these communities access funding they were normally excluded from, it is now becoming a strategic liability. And it discounts their experience as places where knowledge, analysis, and innovation are generated in real time.
When communities are only engaged as recipients or validators of externally designed strategies or narrowly framed as actors for one aspect of climate action, for example, climate justice, philanthropy risks missing out on some of the most relevant insights about resilience, adaptation, and climate leadership. Climate philanthropy should treat frontline leaders as the source of innovative, scalable solutions worthy of investment. Their unique expertise and recommendations deserve to be incorporated into funding strategies as strategic leadership, not just local expert consultants.
Frontline communities understand the conditions that determine whether funding strategies survive realities on the ground and if programme goals can be realised. Additionally, amplifying local leaders and their solutions to climate and energy challenges can better inform the solutions that are invested in by governments and international organisations.
For many frontline communities I’ve worked with, the first time they are seriously asked what they think about an issue is when a larger organisation is already seeking validation, input, or support for a proposed project. These dynamics are rarely conducive to the kind of truth-seeking, long-term capacity-building, and generative movement-building that successful climate action requires.
People on the frontlines want more out of philanthropic projects than being inserted into pre-established programme portfolios and theories of change designed without them. There is a clear need to fund innovative leadership from frontline leaders that do not neatly fit into programme portfolios. Supporting expansive, creative, and generative third spaces enables communities to identify their priorities and design strategies that emerge from their needs rather than from the conditions attached to funding.
I recently supported a local discussion salon in Zambia on community-led visions for the future of critical mineralsand what it looks like to design generative critical mineral futures for local people, economies, and ecosystems. Most of the leaders in the room had never been asked what they wanted to see the proceeds of copper and other critical minerals in their communities go towards. How can this happen when billions have been invested infunding clean energy technologies in Africa, yet communities located at the heart of the resources making these technologies possible are not even asked what they want to see from it? Their exclusion in such conversations is a systemic dead end that cannot continue to happen in our sector.
A new era requires different forms of leadership
Emerging leaders and their solutions require space and re come to terms with the inevitability that some may fail. Committing to funding a project once another organisation has endorsed it, or until an experimental strategy is validated, can lead to stagnation and limit innovation
Trust frontline communities with the re entrepreneurs, and changemakers who may blur the lines of traditional portfolios, but are nimble and successful in organising frontline communities on climate
Now is not the time to fund from a place of fear and limitation. Due diligence is necessary, but safe bets will likely not be enough to advance climate solutions in the way the crisis demands. Insulating from risk is an illusion—it is riskier to wait for certainty than to invest in promising work already taking shape on the frontlines.
If climate philanthropy continues to treat frontline communities as only sites of project implementation to be incorporated into established strategies and solutions, it will keep missing some of the most relevant and original insights on how to respond in this critical moment. Frontline experts are already strategising, responding, and shaping the future of climate adaptation and resilience, and climate philanthropy would be wise to amplify their support for their leadership.
When rexactly what climate philanthropy needs to find its footing in this new era. It’s beyond time to catalyse more investment in frontline leadership, recognising this as a non-negotiable in our collective action to create a prosperous planetary future for all
Kidan Araya is the Founder and Director at Africa Climate x Nature Salon
