COP27 Elevating African Leadership

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem.

Global online event during COP27 to network diverse leaders, including Cardano to unlock climate solutions and build practical innovations that tackle challenges that Africa and Global South face. 

[GENERAL] Summarize your relevant experience.

30+ years of experience in climate and sustainability, building global networks, foundations, and environmental conservation. The last two years of SCC have reached 154 million impressions and political traction with the COP27 Presidency. 

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

This proposal aims to remove the silos around climate negotiations, with a particular but not exclusive focus at COP27. On November 8th SHE Changes Climate (SCC) will host a global online event that will assist in catalyzing innovation, solutions, and partnerships between diverse climate leaders. It will be a series of dialogues hosted by Strategic Partners during the various time zones starting with Australia/ Asia Pacific, followed by  Africa, Europe, the Americas, and the Pacifica to end. The event will gather Heads of State, Ministers, CEOs, activists, and many other leaders in their fields. The aim of the online event is to draw as many marginalized and ‘non-addressed’ parties as possible - especially the Global South - including Africa. We need to bring their experience and expertise in solving climate as voices for solutions. 

The event's focus will draw parallels with COP27 and address climate finance and agriculture in Africa, loss of land and biodiversity, and limiting global heating. Critically, the event will address how we establish just and inclusive climate negotiations. The selection of global speakers will ensure these topics are covered in-depth. This will be a huge platform where the Cardano community could take part in conversations regarding blockchain and impact investing. COP27 is in Africa and therefore Africa will center many of the conversations. The future of crypto, Cardano, and Africa will be discussed as well as focus on how to foster a more resilient and sustainable relationship with climate investing.  

SCC hosted a similar, successful, event during COP26.

This event aims to be a transparent, collaborative, and supportive launching pad and community gathering for positive, diverse climate solutions. The team has already started interacting with the Cardano community. 

[IMPACT] Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.

COP27, the COP of Africa, needs to be more inclusive to address the climate emergency. Africa is the frontier of blockchain and combined with climate solutions Cardano could lead the way for crypto and Catalyst funding.

The event will platform voices that span across time zones. In this way, voices from across the Global North and South will be equally represented. This will allow for the cross-pollination of ideas, support, and strategy building. The network built during this event will include the SCC community of partners and 400+ influential leaders, the Cardano mentoring women network, the Women's Earth Alliance network, the Rallying Cry network of women entrepreneurs in Africa, as well as the Ford Foundation network of grantees.

For Cardano Africa is of strategic importance and being part of the event will  contribute and is aligned with the following Challenge 9 KPIs:

Number of proposals addressing the fundamental issues preventing Cardano adoption in Africa 

Number of proposals offering solutions to infrastructure and education concerns

Local impact (measurable through user activity and reach)

Local partnerships formed (size of institution + influence)

And will indirectly contribute to the following Challenge KPIs:

Number of new Africa-based Catalyst members (proposers, voters, CAs)

Number of new African projects seeded in 2022

Number of African developers onboarded in 2022

The event will highlight the role that Cardano can have in the future of impact investing in Africa. SCC is already in communication with the Cardano community and working on partnerships to address challenges. 

[IMPACT] What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?

Risk of not delivering: The team is already working on finding the most suitable platform for the event. However, there are always risks. To mitigate these, we will run trial events between the teams and become comfortable using the platform. Additionally, there will be event support across the time zones as the event moves across the world. 

Risk of not adopting: There is a risk that people will not be interested in attending the event on November 8th. The hope is this will be a high-profile campaign during COP27. SHE Changes Climate will use our network to gather  Heads of State, Ministers, activists, CEOs, actresses, and many other high-profile speakers. Based on our previous events we believe that there will be great interest and attendance across the day. Additionally, to mitigate risk we will produce a formalized plan, promotion activities, and a registration process to access interested. 

Risk of not reaching the desired outcome: The outcome is to be an inclusive, diverse event that will create a network of supportive, innovative climate solutions. An indirect product of this as addressed in the KPIs is the potential for a number of new initiatives onboarded through our African partners As a product of this, the previous SCC event produced a film as an outcome of the event. The process of the event will determine the outcome.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.

Planning - 6 months - for top-down policy and advocacy combined with bottom-up movement building, public pressure, and mobilization

June: 

• Building and nurturing the community, strategic partners meeting, steering committee meeting, fundraising, developing the concept for the Summit, and starting to map out key stakeholders and potential high-level speakers. 
• Continue to build relationships with the Cardano community and select speakers from Cardano. 
• Developing and maintaining a high-trust relationship with the COP27 Presidency team and High-Level Climate Champions. 
• Setting up the Friends of the Champions Group with 7 outstanding leaders from the MENA region. 

July/ August: 

• Developing the fully-fledged concept note, agenda, and final list of partners for the Summit, engaging and growing the community of partners, and developing media partnerships. 

September:

• Intensifying the policy and advocacy work with the COP27 Presidency while increasing the level of public pressure with the open letter and cooperation with the Avaaz online community

October: 

• Boosting the outreach through media and social media outreach, starting to communicate about confirmed high-level speakers for the Summit. 

November: 

• COP27 and Women Leaders Climate Summit. The event is on the 8th of November and will run for 24 hours. 

December/ January: 

• Collecting feedback, lessons learned, and key statistics to measure impact and prepare monitoring and evaluation report, prepare for COP28 phase already. 

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

Community-building long-run effort: 11,000

• Stakeholder mapping -1,500
• One-to-one engagement - 1,500
• Collective meetings facilitation - 2,000
• Admin and Staff time support for 4 months 

- 4,000 (1000 / month)

- 60 hrs/ month

Summit team preparation: 14,000

• Staff time for 4 months - 4,000 (1000/month)
• Media and social media outreach and advertisement - 1,500
• IT platform- Airmeet Event Platform pricing - 2,000
• Branding and public-facing messaging - 1,500
• Marketing and advertising - 1,500
• Short video “trailer type” announcement - 1,500
• VIP Speakers fees - 2,000

Summit coverage with IT support and facilitation for 24 hours: 2,000 

• 400 per UN region and time zone (5 regions) 

Feedback, monitoring impact, and reporting, financial management: 2,000

Total budget: 29,000

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.

Antoinette Vermilye

Co-Founder SHE Changes Climate and the Gallifrey Foundation and an International Gender Champion. Antoinette is passionate about the complex interrelationships of the ocean, plastics, gender, climate change, and overfishing on social injustice, human health, and the environment. She seeks coalitions to find action-oriented solutions that will have far-reaching impacts downstream or to take action on identified gaps where little or no attention is paid. Antoinette has been involved in tangential legal actions to shift paradigm thinking and create action/reaction scenarios, consumer and education awareness-raising on social injustice, and human health and environmental impacts and also working behind the scenes to affect discreet levers of change.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/antoinette-vermilye-she-her-065a67167/ 

Bianca Pitt

Co-Founder of SHE Changes Climate and the Founder of the Women of the Environment Network. She is an advisor to the environmental charity sector, an activist and campaigner, and an environmental funder. She also serves on a number of boards and advisory committees. She is a Fellow of the RSA and TEDx speaker.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bianca-pitt-a951251/ 

Elise Buckle

Co-Founder of SHE Changes Climate and President of Climate & Sustainability, a platform of collaboration for change-makers focusing on partnership for climate, people, and nature. Elise Buckle has been working in the field of climate and sustainability for 20 years. She has worked as a United Nations special advisor to several high-level diplomats and led several successful global and political campaigns at the EU Parliament, in Africa, Central Asia, and Latin America. She builds and develops broad coalitions of diverse stakeholders from governments, businesses, NGOs, unions, and health organizations aligned on the same collective goal, working together through a process of radical collaboration, as One Team for One Planet, nurturing an ecosystem of actors dedicated to a systemic transformation of society. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elise-buckle/ 

The Co-Founders are supported by a group of highly professional individuals who work across the tech industry, justice, and social media space, and share a deep passion for climate action, diversity, and inclusiveness. 

[FEASIBILITY] If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.

Yes, as we will continue our work for other COPs in the following year, scaling up our work and convening another Summit for COP28 in 2023. We are also preparing other proposals for connecting the network of networks, for a mentoring programme and for catalyzing finance for women entrepreneurs in Africa.

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or any member of your team working on any other proposals in this Fund9?

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or your team working on any other proposals from previous Funds?

[AUDITABILITY] Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?

Deliverables:

• The event will be recorded and shared with the community 
• Networking sessions 
• Marketing materials including Cardano
• Leaders to participate in the event and get exposure to Cardano
• Marketing posts and Media 
• Media kit re Cardano

The event is public and the community has high visibility of the results. 

Key Metrics:

• A number of participants - we expect over 1000 participants globally. 
• In our event last year we received a vast about of media coverage from The BBC (Newsnight, Women’s Hour), FT, Forbes, Vogue, Marie-Claire, and many other global media outlets. This year we will build the same connections and much more. 
• The event is expected to reach 154 million people 
• Local impact (measurable through user activity and reach)
• Local partnerships formed (size of institution + influence)

We expect a big interest in Cardano as well as establish connections to discuss high-level collaborations. 

[AUDITABILITY] What does success for this project look like?

The success of this project would be the cross-fertilization of diverse sustainable solutions and how to achieve them and the elevation of leadership in Africa for climate action and innovation, in particular for women leaders and entrepreneurs.

The event's intention is to build a network of key leaders in their field and share ideas from the Global North and South. The success of the event would be in line directly and indirectly with Challenge 9 KPIs. The hope is that the event will encourage local action, impact, and partnership as well as international knowledge sharing. With COP27 in Africa, a central focus will be sustainably from an African perspective as well as the role of technology and blockchain as the future of sustainable finance. 

With the support from Cardano, this high-profile event will also platform the work that Cardano is doing and the interconnection between sustainability, inclusivity, and blockchain. 

[AUDITABILITY] Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.

New one

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Rating

SDG 5 - gender equality

SDG 13 - climate action

SDG 17- partnership for all goals

SDG 1-end poverty

SDG 4- quality education