RFLD to Fund the ACHPR Study on a Specific Legal Framework for the Protection of Forcibly Displaced Persons in Africa Due to Climate Change

Today the Réseau des Femmes Leaders pour le Développement (RFLD), a pan-African feminist network with Observer Status N°553 before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR), announces that it will fund the Study mandated by ACHPR Resolution ACHPR/Res.628 (LXXXII) 2025 on the development of a specific legal framework for the protection of persons forcibly displaced in Africa as a result of climate change. The Study will be financed through RFLD’s Project — a 30-month initiative led by RFLD, funded by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) with support from the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), and delivered under the SEA-T programme.

The Study, called for by the African Commission itself, will examine the current gaps in international and regional law concerning persons displaced by climate change, and propose recommendations for an appropriate continental legal framework — including the possible modification of the 1969 Organisation of African Unity Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa to formally recognise the status of “climate change refugee”.

RFLD’s support is not symbolic. Through its country offices in Cotonou, Accra, Porto-Novo, Dakar and Banjul, its active networks across 30+ African states, and its standing as an ACHPR Observer, RFLD is committing the full weight of its pan-African feminist infrastructure to this Study — as continental implementation partner, as advocacy and policy uplift partner before the African Commission and the African Union, and as a trusted convener of the African feminist movement on climate justice and forced displacement.

Why this Study matters

Climate change is producing severe and accelerating consequences across Africa. Droughts, floods, storms and other climate-driven shocks are displacing communities at an unprecedented scale. These displacements, frequently internal, leave displaced persons in conditions of acute vulnerability — exposed to heightened risks to their safety, health, livelihoods and fundamental rights. Women, girls and women human rights defenders bear a disproportionate share of these risks, as sexual and reproductive health services collapse in displacement contexts, as gender-based violence rises, and as harmful practices including child marriage and female genital mutilation persist among displaced populations.

At present, there is no comprehensive, specific international or regional legal framework for the protection of persons forcibly displaced by climate change. According to current projections, by 2050 the number of climate-displaced persons in Africa is expected to reach 113 million.

The 1969 OAU Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa takes a broader approach to refugee protection than the 1951 Geneva Convention — it extends protection to persons fleeing more general conditions of unrest or upheaval. Even so, the 1969 Convention does not formally enshrine the status of “climate refugee”. With humanitarian budgets allocated to refugee response shrinking, and with Africa’s exposure to climate-driven displacement growing, host states are placed under additional pressure and may hesitate to extend refugee status to a rising number of climate-displaced asylum seekers. The broad interpretation of the 1969 Convention is no longer sufficient on its own to guarantee protection on climate grounds. The legal enshrinement of climate refugee status is now an urgent continental priority.

What the Study will do

The ACHPR Study, supported by RFLD, has three core objectives:

• Analyse the legal gaps. The Study will examine the existing gaps in international and regional law concerning the protection of persons forcibly displaced by climate change.
• Identify protection needs. The Study will identify the specific protection, assistance and durable-solution needs of climate-displaced populations across the African continent.
• Propose a legal framework. The Study will propose recommendations for the development of an appropriate legal framework — including the possible modification of the 1969 OAU Refugee Convention to include the status of “climate change refugee”, alongside laws, policies and practical measures to prevent displacement, protect those already displaced, and facilitate their resettlement or integration into new living environments.

The principal indicator of success the ACHPR has identified is the development of legal arguments that support the modification or extension of the scope of the 1969 OAU Convention to formally recognise the status of “climate change refugee”.

Who this Study is for

The direct beneficiaries of the Study and the legal framework it will underpin are, first, the forcibly displaced persons of Africa themselves — the women, girls, men and boys whose lives are upturned by climate-driven displacement and who today fall through the gaps of an outdated refugee regime.

The second beneficiaries are the African states themselves, which will gain a clearer continental legal framework to address the protection of forcibly displaced persons adequately, predictably and in alignment with their existing obligations under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

How the Study will be funded

RFLD will fund the work supporting this Study through its Project — a 30-month initiative led by RFLD, funded by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) with support from the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). The Initiative strengthens feminist civil society, supports women human rights defenders, and advances inclusive policy across eight francophone West African countries — at a moment when civic space across the region is under unprecedented pressure.

The Afrofeminist Initiative is delivered under the SEA-T programme — Société. Égalité. Afrique — Transformation (Society. Equality. Africa — Transformation). SEA-T works with local and regional civil society actors to promote social transformation and citizen participation in order to reduce gender inequality and rebalance power relations. SEA-T recognises the expertise, autonomy and initiative of its partners; provides financial and technical support; fosters regional exchange; and reinforces advocacy efforts. Funded by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) in collaboration with GIZ, SEA-T is an example of international cooperation that supports Africa-led change.

By embedding the ACHPR Study within the Afrofeminist Initiative, RFLD ensures that the research is not contingent on external philanthropy to begin. The work is anchored in a multi-year, BMZ-backed, GIZ-supported programme already in motion, with established financial governance, monitoring and reporting standards. This funding posture also reinforces the Study’s core message: African feminist infrastructure is capable of mobilising the resources to produce the evidence the continent needs.

What RFLD’s support means in practice

RFLD’s role in supporting the ACHPR Study is operational and substantive. We are activating our 23-country feminist network to support contextually grounded evidence gathering and community validation; mobilising our ACHPR Observer Status N°553 to ensure the Study’s findings and recommendations reach the Commission’s Working Groups, Special Mechanisms and Member States; and engaging our seat on the Steering Committee of CHARM and our 2026 Presidency of the GIZ/BMZ SEA-T Council, to ensure that the Study lands in every continental forum where decisions about climate-displaced Africans are made.

Concretely, RFLD’s commitment to the Study comprises five elements:

• Continental implementation. RFLD’s country networks across West, Central, East and Southern Africa will support evidence collection on the specific protection needs of climate-displaced women, girls and human rights defenders — ensuring that the Study reflects the lived realities of communities in the Sahel, the Great Lakes, the Horn, and the coastal and island states most exposed to climate shocks.
• Policy uplift before the ACHPR and the AU. Findings will be channelled into joint statements and submissions before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, briefings to the African Union’s Department of Political Affairs, Peace and Security and the Gender, Equality and Development Directorate, and submissions to the ECOWAS, SADC, EAC and IGAD organs responsible for migration and humanitarian protection.
• Civil society anchoring. RFLD will host pan-African civil society review convenings to interrogate, validate and stress-test the Study’s findings — ensuring that it reflects the expertise of African feminist organisations, refugee-led organisations, climate justice movements and frontline humanitarian actors.
• Movement uplift. RFLD will amplify the Study’s findings into the African feminist and youth women’s leadership movement, with a particular focus on young women human rights defenders working at the intersection of climate justice and displacement.
• Funder accountability. RFLD will work with international research and philanthropic partners — including the Open Society Foundations, the Ford Foundation, and other strategic allies — to ensure that the Study’s evidence base is taken seriously in the climate, humanitarian and gender-equality funding decisions that follow.

What this means for our partners

RFLD’s support for the ACHPR Study has direct implications for the institutions that have invested in our network’s vision and capacity. We share what this means for three audiences in particular.

Long-term impact

By providing the legal arguments to support the establishment of climate change refugee status, the Study will reinforce the protection of forcibly displaced persons across the African continent. Filling the current legal gaps will improve access to humanitarian assistance, legal protection and durable solutions for vulnerable populations. It will also contribute to a more coordinated continental response from states, regional economic communities, international organisations and civil society.

More fundamentally, the Study will produce a continental legal instrument that recognises a population the world has so far failed to recognise. For Africa — the continent most exposed to climate-driven displacement, and least responsible for the emissions that have caused it — this is a question of historical justice as much as legal doctrine.

A continental commitment

The African women, girls, men and boys whom the ACHPR Study seeks to protect are not waiting for the legal framework to be drafted — they are surviving, organising and leading their communities through climate-driven displacement every day, in twenty-three countries that RFLD calls home. Our commitment to this Study is a commitment to ensure that the law finally catches up with the lives it claims to protect.

We invite our funder partners, our African Union and ACHPR counterparts, our regional economic community allies, our peer feminist and refugee-led organisations across the continent, and the African legal scholars and researchers whose work will make this Study possible, to join us in this commitment.

About RFLD

The Réseau des Femmes Leaders pour le Développement (RFLD) is a pan-African feminist network founded in 2014, holding Observer Status N°553 before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, with country offices in Cotonou, Accra, Porto-Novo, Dakar and Banjul, and active networks across 30+ African states. RFLD currently holds the 2026 Presidency of the GIZ/BMZ SEA-T Council and sits on the Steering Committee of CHARM. RFLD’s 501(c)(3) Equivalent Determination is on file with NGOsource.