Below is the synthesis of the online consultation series Rural Voices: Our Climate Struggles for Food & Land held May 2025. The RURAL VOICES SERIES – first launched in 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic – is a continuing effort from this year’s commemoration of the March 29 Day of the Landless, which put spotlight on how today’s climate crisis has been exploited to further imperialist plunder of our lands, seas, and resources.

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Amid the climate crisis, Africa’s rural people are concerned with profit-driven development projects and forms of climate action, as well as the attacks on rural communities and their defenders. 

Rural communities are forced to comply with carbon market schemes for their livelihoods. In Kenya, monocropping  is endorsed as a carbon credit mechanism, although such projects are proven to weaken the soil health. There are also laws that enable the encroachment of land in the name of conservation, such as the Consensus Forest Bill that leases forest lands for 40 years at 20,000 KES (~200 USD) per year. Indigenous groups view this  as a risk to their rights over their ancestral lands, while residents find it unaffordable to small-scale farmers and users.

The need for energy in Africa’s rural areas is also exploited for further profiteering and land grabs. Communities in Kenya have gone into debt as they are pushed to rely on expensive yet substandard solar energy technology to augment their limited access to electricity. In Congo, the government’s sale of 52 oil exploration blocks in Congo Basin’s peatlands and rainforests is expected to cause massive devastation in the area and our climate. Financial compensation for damages to affected residents is uncertain.

Women of these communities also experience gender-based violence amid displacement, while facing societal expectations to perform domestic labor.

The protection of land and rural communities has been a resounding call across the region in the face of attacks. In Kenya, activities of defenders and activists are restricted, including street marches, and many of them have moved outside the country to continue contributing to the cause. Measures include court petitions and parliamentary engagement, although there remains a need to engage more people to further push governing bodies to address these issues. Collectives are also formed at the community level for organized efforts to take care and protect lands as public property as well as assert their communal rights. In Madagascar, the youth are motivated and trained to support environmental activism.

Grassroots organizations in Africa are also promoting the use of accessible and renewable energy sources and resources in rural communities. Rural people should manage their natural resources and take lead in their restoration, while damaging projects such as the oil blocks sales and concessions in Congo should be stopped. ###

Participant organizations: Ecological Justice and Women’s Solidarity Network (Kenya), Climate Clock (DRC), TAFA Madagascar 

Written by Jessica Miguel, PCFS intern