Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA) in collaboration with its United States-based partner, Corporate Accountability (CA) has unveiled the Africa Make Big Polluters Pay (MBPP) Storytelling Platform.
The initiative is encouraged by African communities at the frontlines of climate change and extractive industry devastation to share real and visible stories and experiences in the pursuit of climate justice.
The MBPP Storytelling Platform will illuminate the devastating impacts of transnational corporations’ extractive activities, debunk false solutions, and champion real and sustainable alternatives in Africa.
Unveiling of the platform which was organised by CAPPA was held on Monday day via a webinar. In his welcome and opening remark, Akinbode Oluwafemi, the Executive Director of CAPPA described the project as an ‘epoch making event’ aimed to properly articulate and advocate the devastating impact of climate crisis in Africa.
He also thanked CA and MBPP coalition members across the continent for the creation of the platform to target frontline community stories across the continent, encouraging them to see the platform as theirs, adding that “Contributions are welcome, and we want people to point us to stories or bring those stories to our attention.”
In his presentation, Olamide Martins Ogunlade, Senior Programme Manager and head of the Climate Campaign at CAPPA urged the Global South to treat matters of climate change with utmost urgency. He said: “we are not unaware of the fact that conversations around climate justice has been reduced to charity by corporations and by countries that are responsible.
So what appears as the only opportunity we have now or the only means to agitate for commensurate compensation is the amount of evidence that we put on the table.”
That evidence, like the snippets from the Ayetoro community in Ondo State, Ogunlade added, is part of what will be hosted on the platform and will be part of the basis to argue that climate justice be taken off the charity list of the global north.
Building on the momentum, CAPPA’s Media Officer Robert Egbe who spoke on ‘maximising media opportunities in African climate stories’, noted that African communities were grossly disproportionately affected by climate change caused by the industrialised countries of the global north, but had little capacity to solve the problems by themselves, hence the need for journalists to help push the African narrative for climate justices.
