Vanessa Nakate has gone beyond awareness and advocacy to support community-based solutions, addressing Uganda’s environmental challenges. In addition to her activism around climate justice and the disproportionate impacts of climate change on African communities, she worked on developing initiatives that give direct social and environmental advantages. They address issues such as deforestation, reliance on fossil fuels, energy insecurity and the lack of African voices in climate discussions. Nakate’s work in the Vash Green Schools Project, the #StopEACOP campaign, and the Rise Up Movement exemplifies how grassroots efforts, advocacy and community involvement contribute to more sustainable environmental solutions.
Rise Up Movement
The Rise Up Movement is an Africa-focused climate justice movement that pressures governments and industries to take action addressing the causes and impacts of climate change. The movement grew out of Nakate’s earlier movement Youth for Future Africa which she founded in Uganda before expanding into a community that mobilised and connected young activists across numerous African countries.
The movement both amplifies African voices and underlines the disproportionate impacts of climate change all over the continent within the climate justice framework. Overall, it is a representative example of how advocacy can lead to community-level climate action combined with visible sustainable initiatives. The movement addresses several environmental challenges. Firstly, it points out that African communities are becoming more affected by floods, long-term droughts and crop failures even when considering their little contribution to global emissions. Secondly, it stresses the impact of deforestation, which harms ecosystems and threatens the livelihoods of communities that rely on forests for their daily lives. The movement additionally raises concerns about wetlands degradation, arguing that the loss of these ecosystems exacerbates floods and compromises water regulation, harming both biodiversity and agricultural productivity.
Notably, the movement operates amid several important limitations. It raises awareness on encroachment into protected areas, deforestation, the extensive use and production of oil and gas, but ultimately has no formal authority to prevent, cease or even regulate these activities. In turn, it focuses on exerting moral pressure on governments, international organisations and corporations. While the movement can influence public debate and push for policy changes, it does not possess any legislative power. Therefore, the success of the Rise Up movement relies on the extent to which governments, policymakers and businesses are willing to respond to public pressure and implement proposed changes. Taking this into consideration, the progress may be slow, especially where economic interests, like fossil fuel extraction and large infrastructure projects, clash with environmental priorities. Yet, if the Rise Up movement succeeds in convincing governments to adopt stronger climate policies, it reinforces both Nakate’s influence and her credibility as a climate leader. Her involvement in quite successful campaigns such as The StopEACOP movement, protecting the Congo rainforest from deforestation, and promoting a shift and investment to and in renewable energy, exemplifies how her advocacy translates into visible policy outcomes, showing that grassroots activism can produce measurable outcomes. This heightened credibility would enable Nakate to effectively engage with governments, policymakers and organisations. In turn, it would give her greater opportunities to influence the future funding decisions and climate legislation. It would additionally allow her to advance in her more general goal of ensuring that African perspectives and climate change are given more attention in international climate discourse.
Vash Green Schools Project
The Vash Green Schools project installs solar panels and eco-friendly, energy-efficient institutional stoves in rural schools in Uganda. The project aims to provide reliable and sustainable electricity to vulnerable communities with very limited access to electricity. It also seeks to reduce deforestation caused by an overdependency on biomass such as charcoal and firewood. By creating cleaner and safer environments, the project directly improves education and public health.
The initiative addresses the environmental challenges of deforestation and degradation. Instead of treating deforestation as an isolated issue, the project recognises it as a consequence of Uganda’s dependence on traditional fuels. Uganda’s forests supply 90% of the country’s energy through charcoal and firewood, contributing significantly to deforestation, as low-income communities continually harvest wood for daily needs. With environmentally sustainable alternatives being mostly inaccessible, reducing deforestation requires provision of affordable and reliable energy sources. Nakate’s project directly targets this issue by providing schools with clean energy technologies cost-free. As of July 2026, the project has reached 75 schools, having installed 60 solar power systems and 75 eco-friendly institutional stoves. Overall, the initiative is assessed to have positively impacted more than 20,000 students whilst also reducing firewood consumption by 50% in Uganda.
Nakate has often criticised climate and energy policies for failing to consider the realities of communities suffering from the consequences of climate change. In this context, the Vash Green Schools project can be interpreted as a pragmatic reaction to perceived shortcomings of government-led approaches. The initiative provides immediate solutions at the community level rather than focusing on specific policy changes on the legislative one.
Participation and activism in the #StopEACOP Agenda
Vanessa Nakate has loudly criticised the East African crude oil pipeline – a 900-mile oil pipeline extending from Kabaale, Uganda, to the port of Tanga in Tanzania. By advocating publicly through interviews, speeches and climate campaigns, she seeks to raise awareness of the environmental and social consequences associated with the pipeline.
The #StopEACOP Agenda addresses numerous community-based challenges in Uganda. For instance, faith leaders in Uganda and Tanzania published a report documenting EACOP’s destruction of over 2000 graves along the route of the pipeline, with minimal effort to consult or compensate the affected. Furthermore, due to insufficient and delayed compensation by the project developer TotalEnergies, countless families have been left displaced and unable to replace their lost land and resources, undermining their daily lives. A 2023 report by the Africa Institute for Energy Governance revealed that many households displaced by development projects, including by the EACOP, witnessed a decline in agricultural productivity. Around 41% were allocated replacement land with low farming potential and only 3% rated theirs as being highly productive. Consequently, crop production has decreased with only 77% of the households harvesting more than 51 kg per season after relocation compared to 92% before displacement. The study also found a significant drop in household income, with the number of families earning more than UGX 300,000 per year dropping from 90% to 69%, forcing many households to rely mostly on subsistence agriculture.
The pipeline also poses environmental risks. Despite the TotalEnergies’ claim that the project doesn’t cross any Ramsar zones or International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) sites, EACOP cuts through 44 protected areas and 7 key biodiversity areas (KBAs), threatening habitats, endangered species and ecosystem services that support many local communities. Oil spills, habitat fragmentation and the influx of new infrastructure caused by pipelines pose disproportionate hazards to KBAs. For instance, Murchison Falls, one of the KBAs on EACOP’s route, is a critical protected area for biodiversity, home to many species like elephants and hippos. It plays a central role in stabilising the ecology in the region and also serves as a major source of income for local communities and the country through tourism. Here, EACOP directly threatens the ecological and economic support system, endangering one of Uganda’s most famous natural treasures. The Victoria Nile riverbank, a part of Murchison Falls, which over 40 million inhabitants are dependent on through agriculture, fishing and commerce is at an immense risk because of the pipeline, with any oil spill being detrimental. Additionally, with 630,000 square metres of vegetation lost alongside the development of the oil project, socioeconomic risks increase and ecological lifeline drops.
In order to amplify her concerns about EACOP and bring attention to its consequences, Nakate has used interviews, social media platforms, and international media coverage. For example, at a #StopEACOP event in 2022, Nakate stated that there was “no future in the fossil fuel industry, which has done more harm than good in much of Africa. We cannot eat oil nor drink oil”. Hence, through the international platform, Nakate intentionally connects local risks to land and water in East Africa with the broader global movement against fossil fuel development. At the same time, all environmental allegations have been contested by EACOP.
IE x RAIA Summer Research Programme: Vanessa Nakate Profile
This article is an excerpt from a report on Vanessa Nakate produced as part of a RAIA research programme on climate leaders. For a full picture of Nakate’s climate leadership, including the sources, read the full report. This project was fully financed by IE University’s School of Politics, Economics and Global Affairs and School of Science and Technology.
Authors: Maïa Ines Mallet De Vandègre, Trixie Claudette Nebres & Lucia Piederiet
Editor: Ksenia Kumanina
Project Lead: Dario Hasenstab
