JAMAA Grands Lacs receives the first prize award
On December 9, 2025, in Nairobi, JAMAA Grands Lacs had the honor of being recognized at a regional ceremony marking the 10th anniversary of Unite...
Building peace at the grassroots level, strengthening the leadership of young people and women, and supporting the resilience of conflict-affected communities in the Great Lakes region.
JAMAA Grands Lacs is a non-governmental organization committed to building more peaceful, inclusive, resilient, and economically empowered societies.
In a Great Lakes region marked by decades of conflict, displacement, exclusion, and trauma, we believe that lasting change begins with dignity, participation, and community empowerment.
We work alongside youth, women, conflict-affected communities, and marginalized populations to prevent and transform conflicts, strengthen dialogue and social cohesion, promote transformational leadership, and create opportunities for communities to recover.
On December 9, 2025, in Nairobi, JAMAA Grands Lacs had the honor of being recognized at a regional ceremony marking the 10th anniversary of Unite...
To effectively address complex ground challenges, our interventions focus on key programs centered on peace, governance, and civic engagement.
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Guide féministe pour la protection et la promotion des droits de la femme
The world has been facing multifaceted and unprecedented crises for some time now. The year 2023 was marked in Africa in particular by a resurgence of wars and the spread of terrorism and violent extremism, particularly in the Great Lakes region and the Sahel states. At the same time, we have witnessed a decline in democratic values with the erosion of the meaning of elections as one of the pillars of democracy. In addition, the climate crisis has accelerated, requiring immediate strategic action at the local, continental, and global levels. These factors have highlighted the importance of taking concerted action and stepping up our efforts to promote more democratic, inclusive, peaceful societies that are resilient to climate change and the excesses of certain political powers. It has been essential to encourage the emergence of new agents of change, support their actions, and promote democratic institutions that respect the fundamental rights of peoples and individuals, while making diversity an opportunity and a driving force for social harmony. In 2023, we focused our efforts on mobilization, education, dialogue, networking, advocacy, and strategic and participatory partnerships with young people and women in Africa (particularly in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, and Togo). These actions have significantly strengthened their commitment to peace, participatory democracy, and climate action. We have encouraged and promoted responsible and transparent governance, ethical leadership, climate justice, and the protection and support of the most vulnerable in terms of health, psychology, and legal issues. We encouraged and promoted responsible and transparent governance, ethical leadership, climate justice, and health, psychological, and legal protection and support for the most vulnerable, namely displaced persons, refugees, women and girls who are survivors of sexual violence in the DRC, people living with disabilities, etc. The impact of these actions is reflected in the strengthening of collective resilience, the contribution to inter-community reconciliation processes, the elevation of the level of civic leadership of civil society actors, the inclusion of young people and women in the sphere of local and national governance in their countries, the expansion of our network of change agents in Africa, the rebuilding of hope and meaning in life for hundreds of people displaced by war and women survivors of sexual violence in camps in eastern DRC, and the restoration of individuals' confidence in their power to bring about transformative change within local communities. With our vast community of young people and women who are agents of change in Africa's Great Lakes and Sahel regions, we continue to work towards the emergence of democratic, just, and peaceful societies. Building peace and restoring hope in the hearts of human beings is one of the noble missions of our generation at a time when humanity is facing a systemic crisis to which no one yet has a real answer. In 2024, beyond our traditional activities, we will rely on our teams' sense of innovation to develop new approaches, while exploiting the untapped and unlimited potential offered by new technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, in the service of peace, democracy, climate action, and sustainable community development. We sincerely hope to benefit from your trust and support in continuing this work.
The climate crisis is already here, and today’s youth and future generations will face its most severe consequences. That includes the approximately one billion young people who live in less developed regions—one-quarter of whom live in the world’s Least Developed Countries (LDCs), where climate change impacts are the most severe. Indeed, without accelerated climate action, children born in the year 2020 could experience up to seven times more extreme weather events like scorching heatwaves during their lifetimes compared to their grandparents.1 While young people have contributed little to climate change, they are the ones who are and will continue to be disproportionately affected by its damaging environmental and social impacts. Moreover, while climate change alone does not cause conflict, its impacts can exacerbate vulnerabilities, undermine livelihoods, and increase grievances and tensions which may in some cases increase the risk of violent conflict. These interlinked challenges demand urgent and collective action. Across the globe, many young people are now assuming responsibility for responding to the unsustainable societal and environmental trajectories set by previous generations. They are driving change in their communities and on the global stage to address the interlinked climate and conflict crises—everything from leading efforts to restore our natural world to influencing the outcomes of climate negotiations and leading efforts for climate justice and intergenerational equity in courtrooms. Others are finding innovative ways of adapting to new uncertain realities. It is crucial to move beyond viewing young people only as vulnerable and to recognize their resilient responses, while reinforcing their pivotal roles as leaders in climate and peace action. Young people, in all their diversity, have the undeniable right to participate in decision-making processes, charting paths toward mitigating the impacts of climate-related risks and sustaining peace. Their meaningful engagement is not optional; it is essential for effectively addressing climate-related security risks and ensuring a sustainable future. Although the connections between youth, climate, peace and security are evident in reality, they have not been adequately translated into integrated policy and programming approaches. This guidance note by the Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) is the first of its kind that bridges the climate, peace and security (CPS) and youth, peace and security (YPS) agendas. It sheds new light on how young people are at the leading edge of these efforts already acting and working in an integrated manner to address climate-related security risks. It also provides practitioners with exploratory guidance and considerations for creating an integrated agenda on youth, climate, peace and security within research and analysis, programming, strategic planning, policy-making, and funding that can ultimately drive progress on the Sustainable Development Goals. We extend our deepest gratitude to the young expert contributors and partners who have collaborated on this guidance note. As countries now embark on the design of their crucial third generation Nationally Determined Contributions in advance of COP30 in Brazil in 2025 that will be vital to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, we hope that this report will empower young people and partners to youth with innovative tools and new impetus a proven means to help navigate a pathway out of the turbulent waters of an escalating climate crisis and mounting global instability.
Across the Great Lakes region, we measure the effectiveness of our actions promoting peace, inclusive governance, and civic leadership.
People supported through our programs.
Active regional intervention zones.
Introduced to leadership & innovation.
Politically and economically empowered.
Civil society actors & institutions.
Resources, guides, and digitized documents.
Analysis reports and field studies.
Successfully implemented field initiatives.