CFAs: Leadership of Adolescent Girls and Community Engagement for Climate Resilience (Senegal)

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is inviting qualified organizations to support climate-resilient education in Senegal by empowering adolescent girls as climate leaders and strengthening community participation in climate risk prevention and adaptation. The initiative will build on UNICEF’s Green Schools experience to help schools, children, and communities respond to climate-related risks while promoting gender equality, child protection, and inclusive climate action.

What Is the UNICEF Climate Resilience Programme?

The initiative aims to strengthen the ability of schools, children, adolescent girls, and local communities in Senegal to prepare for and respond to climate-related risks.

Senegalese children face increasing exposure to hazards such as:

• Extreme heat.
• Flooding.
• Drought.
• Pollution.
• Climate-related disruption to education.
• Damage to school infrastructure.

These risks can have particularly serious consequences for girls, including increased vulnerability to early marriage and gender-based violence when education and community protection systems are disrupted.

The initiative therefore combines climate adaptation, education, gender equality, adolescent participation, disaster risk reduction, and community engagement.

Why Climate-Resilient Schools Matter

Climate change can directly affect children’s ability to access safe and continuous education.

Extreme weather events can damage classrooms, interrupt school attendance, reduce learning time, and create additional protection risks for vulnerable children.

UNICEF’s approach seeks to make schools more resilient by combining physical and community-based approaches to climate adaptation.

The programme also places adolescent girls at the centre of climate leadership, recognizing their role as students, advocates, communicators, and community actors.

Programme Background in Senegal

UNICEF has already piloted its Green Schools initiative in Matam, providing a foundation for expanding climate adaptation and protection activities.

The new initiative will build on this experience, particularly in areas where schools face both environmental and socio-security vulnerabilities.

Border regions are an important context because communities may experience overlapping climate, displacement, livelihood, and security challenges.

Main Objectives

The programme has several interconnected objectives.

Empower Adolescent Girls as Climate Leaders

Girls will be supported to participate more actively in:

The goal is to strengthen girls’ confidence and leadership while giving them practical opportunities to influence climate-related decisions.

Strengthen Climate Risk Management

The initiative will help schools and communities improve their ability to identify and respond to climate risks.

Activities may include:

• Climate risk awareness.
• Early warning mechanisms.
• Community preparedness.
• Risk communication.
• Adaptation planning.
• Local climate advocacy.

Increase Community Participation

Community actors will be mobilized to support climate prevention and adaptation activities.

This can help ensure that climate-resilient schools are not isolated projects but are supported by families, communities, local authorities, and other relevant stakeholders.

Support Youth-Led Climate Advocacy

Young people, particularly adolescent girls, will be encouraged to advocate for climate action and safer, more resilient learning environments.

Expected Results

The initiative aims to reach at least 1,500 girls across 15 selected schools.

Participants are expected to develop stronger skills in:

• Leadership.
• Public speaking.
• Advocacy.
• Climate risk communication.
• Community engagement.
• Climate resilience.

The programme also expects to establish girl-led early warning systems and community engagement mechanisms that contribute to more inclusive and climate-resilient schools.

Who Is Eligible?

The opportunity is intended for organizations with relevant experience in community-based development, adolescent participation, gender equality, and climate resilience.

Eligible organizations should demonstrate:

• Experience in community engagement.
• Experience working with adolescents and young people.
• Strong youth participation approaches.
• Gender-sensitive programming experience.
• Local presence in Senegal.
• Experience working with decentralized services.
• Previous experience working with UN agencies, where applicable.
• Appropriate safeguarding policies and procedures.
• Strong accountability mechanisms toward communities.

Organizations should also demonstrate that they have the operational and technical capacity to implement activities effectively in the targeted communities.

What Experience Should Applicants Demonstrate?

A strong organization should be able to show previous work involving:

• Adolescent girls.
• Youth leadership.
• Climate change adaptation.
• Disaster risk reduction.
• Community resilience.
• Education.
• Gender equality.
• Child protection.
• Early warning systems.
• Community advocacy.

Experience connecting multiple stakeholders is also valuable because the programme requires collaboration among schools, young people, families, communities, and local actors.

Key Activities

The selected organization is expected to develop activities that translate the programme’s objectives into practical results.

Potential activities may include:

• Training adolescent girls in leadership.
• Developing public speaking and advocacy skills.
• Building climate risk communication capacity.
• Supporting girls’ participation in school governance.
• Establishing girl-led early warning mechanisms.
• Training communities on climate risk prevention.
• Developing community climate adaptation strategies.
• Supporting youth-led climate advocacy.
• Mobilizing community stakeholders.
• Promoting inclusive and gender-responsive climate action.

All activities should contribute to safer and more climate-resilient schools.

How the Programme Works

Step 1: Identify Participating Schools

The programme will work with 15 selected schools and identify the adolescent girls who will participate in leadership and climate resilience activities.

Step 2: Build Girls’ Leadership Skills

Girls will receive training and practical support in areas such as:

• Leadership.
• Public speaking.
• Advocacy.
• Climate awareness.
• Risk communication.
• Community engagement.

Step 3: Establish Girl-Led Climate Mechanisms

Participating girls will be supported to contribute to climate risk management and early warning activities within their schools and communities.

Step 4: Engage Communities

Community actors will participate in climate risk prevention and adaptation activities.

This approach helps connect school-level resilience with wider community preparedness.

Step 5: Promote Youth-Led Advocacy

Girls and other young people will be encouraged to communicate climate concerns and advocate for appropriate adaptation measures.

Step 6: Monitor Results

The implementing organization will monitor participation, skills development, community engagement, and progress toward climate-resilient school outcomes.

Why This Opportunity Matters

This initiative addresses climate change and education together rather than treating them as separate challenges.

A climate-resilient school can help protect:

• Children’s access to education.
• School infrastructure.
• Learning continuity.
• Child protection.
• Community preparedness.
• Girls’ participation and leadership.

The focus on adolescent girls also recognizes that climate-related disruptions can have different consequences for girls and boys.

By placing girls in leadership roles, the programme seeks to transform them from beneficiaries of climate action into active climate resilience leaders.

What Makes a Strong Proposal?

Applicants should clearly connect their activities with measurable programme results.

A strong proposal should explain:

• Which climate risks affect the target communities.
• How adolescent girls will participate in decision-making.
• How girls will develop practical leadership skills.
• How early warning systems will function.
• How community actors will be engaged.
• How gender considerations will be integrated.
• How children will be safeguarded.
• How results will be measured.
• How the approach can be sustained after the project.

Applicants should avoid presenting climate awareness activities without explaining how they will produce concrete improvements in school and community resilience.

Application Assessment Criteria

Applications will be evaluated based on several factors, including:

• Clarity of proposed activities.
• Quality and relevance of expected results.
• Relevant organizational experience.
• Safeguarding policies.
• Contribution to programme activities.
• Accountability to communities.
• Capacity to engage adolescents and young people.
• Gender-sensitive implementation approaches.

Applicants should ensure that their proposal demonstrates both technical competence and meaningful community participation.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Organizations should avoid:

• Treating girls only as programme beneficiaries rather than leaders.
• Providing generic climate awareness activities without measurable outcomes.
• Failing to explain community participation.
• Ignoring child safeguarding requirements.
• Using a gender-neutral approach where gender-specific risks are central to the programme.
• Failing to demonstrate local experience in Senegal.
• Providing weak evidence of previous adolescent or youth engagement.
• Not explaining how early warning mechanisms will operate.
• Failing to connect activities with climate resilience and education outcomes.

Tips for Potential Applicants

Organizations can strengthen their proposals by:

• Using evidence from previous community-based projects.
• Clearly identifying local climate risks.
• Providing a practical plan for reaching the 15 schools.
• Explaining how the target of 1,500 girls will be achieved.
• Integrating girls into planning and decision-making.
• Including strong safeguarding measures.
• Demonstrating partnerships with schools and decentralized authorities.
• Establishing clear monitoring indicators.
• Showing how community ownership will continue after the project.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the UNICEF climate-resilient schools opportunity?

It is an initiative supporting climate resilience in Senegalese schools through adolescent girls’ leadership, community engagement, climate risk prevention, early warning, and adaptation.

How many girls is the programme expected to reach?

The programme aims to strengthen the leadership, advocacy, public speaking, and risk communication skills of at least 1,500 girls across 15 selected schools.

What is the role of adolescent girls in the programme?

Girls will be positioned as active participants and leaders in school governance, climate risk management, early warning, community engagement, and youth-led climate advocacy.

What climate risks does the initiative address?

The broader context includes extreme heat, flooding, drought, pollution, and other climate-related disruptions that can affect education, school infrastructure, and child protection.

Who can apply?

Organizations with relevant experience in community engagement, adolescent and youth participation, gender-sensitive programming, and local implementation in Senegal are encouraged to apply. Experience with decentralized services or UN agencies is also relevant.

What are girl-led early warning systems?

These are climate or disaster risk communication and preparedness mechanisms in which adolescent girls play an active role in identifying, communicating, and responding to risks affecting their schools and communities.

What will UNICEF consider when evaluating applications?

Evaluation will consider the clarity of proposed activities and results, organizational experience, safeguarding policies, contribution to activities, and accountability to communities.

Conclusion

The UNICEF climate resilience initiative offers organizations in Senegal an opportunity to strengthen climate-resilient education, adolescent girls’ leadership, community preparedness, and gender-responsive climate action.

The programme’s focus on 1,500 girls across 15 schools, girl-led early warning mechanisms, and community engagement creates an integrated approach to climate adaptation and child protection. Organizations with strong local experience, adolescent participation expertise, gender-sensitive approaches, and robust safeguarding and accountability systems are best positioned to develop competitive proposals.