Tax Justice Network Africa (TJNA), together with Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES), World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), ACT Alliance and CARE International, will convene African civil society organisations and selected experts for a deep-dive meeting on private climate finance, adaptation investment and carbon markets from 12 to 14 August 2026 in Limuru, Kenya.
The meeting comes at a critical moment for Africa’s climate and development agenda. Public climate finance remains far below estimated needs, development assistance is under pressure, and many African countries face growing fiscal and debt constraints. Against this backdrop, private finance and carbon markets are being promoted as important routes for closing the climate finance gap.
While these mechanisms may mobilise additional investment, stimulate innovation and support local enterprise, they also raise urgent questions about who carries risk, who benefits and who is heard. Community participation, land and carbon rights, free, prior and informed consent, equitable benefit-sharing, transparency, environmental integrity, and accountability must remain central to Africa’s engagement with emerging climate finance arrangements.
A central focus of the meeting will be adaptation finance. Many essential adaptation measures, including water security, ecosystem restoration, early warning systems, resilient health services and community-based disaster preparedness, generate public and social value without producing straightforward commercial returns. Participants will examine where private investment can make a responsible contribution, where public and grant-based finance remains indispensable, and how blended finance can be structured without transferring undue risks to governments and vulnerable communities.
The dialogue will also examine the fiscal architecture shaping climate finance. Carbon pricing, environmental taxation, fossil-fuel subsidy reform, taxation of windfall profits and the removal of environmentally harmful tax incentives all influence investment choices, public revenue and the distribution of risk. For TJNA, private investment must complement — not weaken — public policy, domestic resource mobilisation and the obligation of developed countries to provide predictable, adequate and grant-based climate finance.
The convening will bring together 20–25 participants in a dialogue-led format. The programme will use world cafés, peer case-sharing circles, facilitated debates, strategy clinics, working groups and plenary discussions. Participants will interrogate real-world experiences of blended finance and carbon markets, including questions of contracting, pricing, governance, benefit-sharing, land and carbon rights, and free, prior, and informed consent.
Across the three days, participants will work towards shared principles and priority advocacy areas for African civil society. The meeting will seek to strengthen CSO capacity to engage in policy and governance processes at national, regional and global levels, while identifying practical opportunities for collaboration, knowledge sharing and policy influence.
By building common ground while making space for principled disagreement, the meeting aims to equip African civil society with a stronger, more coordinated basis to ensure that climate finance serves people, protects rights, and advances a just transition across the continent.
For more information, please email Gloria Majiga via gmajiga[@]taxjusticeafrica.net.
