SouthxSouth Lab: gathering activists from the Global South

Lab Sul x Sul - Foto: Coletivo Olhar Marginal

With the theme ‘The peripheries at the centre of climate justice and of 'Bem Viver'’, the meeting brought together socio-environmental activists from nine countries in the Global South for a week in Santos, São Paulo

Context

The SouthxSouth Lab was a project carried out by the Procomum Institute and UMI Fund, which brought together representatives of climate justice organisations from nine countries in the Global South. The aim was to foster connections between people and organisations working for climate justice in these regions. The five days of gathering in Santos were attended by representatives of organisations working on socio-environmental issues from places such as Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, India and Lebanon.

The discussions went far beyond socio-environmental issues, and also touched on topics such as art, culture, public policies and ancestral knowledge. The focus of the gathering was to offer a welcoming and safe space for dialogue so that people could exchange experiences in different, often violent contexts, with a view to strengthening each participating organisation and the possibility of collaboration between them.

Around 80 people came together this week, including the invited participants, the UMI Fund and Procomum teams and the external team invited to join the Lab. Also invited to attend were a number of national and international institutions that fund projects related to the climate agenda. The presence of these representatives was aimed at bringing together the dialogue between those who implement and those who finance climate change projects.

Approach

Our team was responsible for planning the agenda for the week, together with the team from the host organisations, and for facilitating the gathering. The agenda was designed with the intention of broadening the moments of connection between the people present, considering that some of them came from situations of vulnerability and violence. We also considered it important to offer moments to align relevant concepts on the subject, encouraging the sharing of knowledge and experiences between the activists and organisations present in panel discussions.

In these panels, topics such as the forces and obstacles to achieving climate justice and the role of the UN Conferences of the Parties (COPs) and other major international treaties for climate justice in the countries of the Global South were addressed. Inclusive and equitable ways of creating multiple narratives of mobilisation and information flow in the territories were also debated. Over the course of the days, the exchanges made it possible to identify opportunities for the creation of common projects among the people present. These projects will receive seed capital to encourage action in favour of climate justice in the global south.