The Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), in collaboration with the University of Venda, Midlands State University, the National Youth Climate Action Network of Namibia, and Africa Climate Alliance, has announced that it will host a virtual webinar preceding the third Climate Change and Futures in Africa Conference.
The webinar will take place on Friday, 5 September, from 11:00 to 13:00, says the HSRC.
Titled, Decolonising Climate Risk Scholarship from the Global North to Africa, the webinar represents more than an academic exercise; it directly confronts the imbalances embedded in contemporary climate scholarship and is a deliberate attempt to disrupt the status quo within the politics of climate knowledge by examining how knowledge is produced and whose perspectives are prioritised, adds the council.
It is designed to challenge existing knowledge hierarchies that systematically marginalise Global South perspectives while simultaneously elevating indigenous and local knowledge systems that offer valuable insights for climate risk management, says the council.
According to the principal convener, HSRC's Dr Wilfred Lunga, the webinar creates space for transformative dialogue that moves beyond extractive research practices toward genuinely collaborative knowledge production.
"Our approach recognises that meaningful climate action requires not merely the inclusion of Global South voices as subjects of research, but their recognition as authoritative knowledge producers whose insights can fundamentally reshape how we understand and respond to climate challenges," says Dr Lunga.
"By centring African experiences and knowledge systems, we aim to demonstrate how decolonial approaches can generate robust, contextually appropriate and socially just climate knowledge. This approach aligns with growing recognition within climate scholarship that technical solutions divorced from social and cultural contexts consistently fail to address the root causes of climate vulnerability," concludes Dr Lunga.
For more information, visit www.hsrc.ac.za. You can also follow The HSRC on Facebook, LinkedIn, or on Instagram.
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