The Solutions Lab
Innovation Challenges
Solutions Accelerator
Solutions Stories
About the Lab
The Solutions Lab which enables and advances GCCM’s flagship programmes, with academic and research partners, solution-makers & entrepreneurs, as well as frontline communities. The GCCM flagship programmes advance priority projects on climate literacy, green skills, water & land solutions, and climate action for sustaining peace.
The Solutions Lab lead innovation challenges, acts as a solutions accelerator, and support solutions stories. It works closely with its regional Climate Mobility Fellows, youth innovators and other local agents of change, with the aim of scaling up successful solutions.
Climate Mobility Fellows
During the fall of 2022, the Africa Climate Mobility Youth Innovation Challenge was organized. The solution-makers selected through the Challenge have been awarded with Climate Mobility Fellowships. These Fellowships will offer ongoing support to young entrepreneurs who propose innovative ways of addressing climate mobility.
The Fellows will be embedded in a peer-support network of young innovators and tap into mentoring and technical support from the Global Centre for Climate Mobility Solutions Lab, as well as other UN affiliated innovation & technology labs. The selected fellows will have the opportunity to present their solution to partners at COP27 and will be connected with continued mentoring opportunities, placements with universities or innovation labs to continue to develop their solutions. The Fellows will also receive a monthly stipend for one year to a value of $10,000 over the Fellowship period. We are pleased to announce our 2022-23 Climate Mobility Fellows.
James Thuch Madhier
Rainmaker Enterprise, South Sudan
James Thuch Madhier is the Founder of the Rainmaker Enterprise, a non-profit social enterprise that transforms lives in conflict-affected and climate-change-affected regions through solar-powered water infrastructure to build healthy, inclusive, peaceful, and sustainable communities.
In 1998, when James was only 9 years old, he witnessed the famine in Bhar El Gazal region of then southern Sudan. The famine was a result of a combination of disruptions to food supply chains by war as well as climate change shocks. James saw all this happening to his community.
After witnessing all of this, James promised himself to find durable solutions that restore dignity to those affected by conflict and climate change. He started the Rainmaker Enterprise in 2016 to implement climate-adaptive solutions that restore dignity to those displaced by climate change shocks and those at risk of being displaced. To achieve this, James implements solar-powered water supply systems for community health and for irrigation farming, boosting food production levels to address extreme hunger.
Careen Joel Mwakitalu
Geospatial Data 4 Climate Mobility, Tanzania
Careen Joel Mwakitalu is a Tanzanian journalist and climate advocate. She works with local and international organizations to execute projects focusing on climate action, inclusion, resilience, and recovery in Eastern and Southern Africa.
Careen is the Co-founder of No Taka Tanzania, a mobile Eco Hub that employs technology to develop sustainable climate solutions. In Tanzania, one of the major refugee and migrant hosting countries in Africa, climate mobility may redefine sectors like agriculture and biodiversity conservation and could affect the overall development capacity.
Through its Geospatial Data 4 Climate Mobility project, No Taka uses geospatial data tools offered by meteorological authorities to map out climate mobility-related aspects such as land degradation. With the data generated from the Geospatial Data 4 Climate Mobility project, Careen hopes to inform policy and create solutions for affected populations. One of the initiatives that Careen aims to develop out of the Geospatial Data 4 Climate Mobility project is a sustainable agricultural initiative that will inform the usage and productivity of land in refugee camps located in the western part of Tanzania.
