(2017) 1 African Human Rights Yearbook 39 face. While adults are often limited in their thinking to the short and medium term, children have displayed an ability to consider the distant future.57 The best interest of the child also requires ‘consultation with children through participatory assessments that are systematic, ageappropriate and gender-sensitive.58 The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by the United Nations High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development in 2015, represents a commitment by world leaders to ‘strive to provide children and youth with a nurturing environment for the full realization of their rights and capabilities’, which, according to the Children in a Changing Climate Coalition ‘is the strongest acknowledgement to date of the capacity of children to participate in the processes that shape their world’.59 Under the African Children’s Rights Charter there is also already a recognition of the agency of children, through the provision for rights along with responsibilities, which can only be fulfilled if children are allowed to participate.60 Along with the non-discrimination clause in the Children’s Charter, there is thus provision in the African human rights context for children to participate, also in decisions related to climate change. The concern, as already touched on above, is in the extent to which they are in practice provided with the resources, knowledge and opportunity to do so. A UNICEF project in Philippines has demonstrated that when children are equipped with the necessary skills, and have access to ‘child-friendly and language-appropriate information [and] mechanisms for their meaningful participation in decision making’ they are able to make meaningful contributions’.61 Such conducive environments are not often created for children to voice their opinions in public fora. 4 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS Having looked at the social and economic circumstances of children in Africa in the context of a changing climate, and considering the legal means through which the vulnerability of children in particular, and girl children specifically (created by the intersectionality of sex, age and poverty) could potentially be addressed, it is concluded that the African human rights system, particularly when the African Women’s Rights Protocol is read in conjunction with the Children’s Charter, largely provides adequate legal protection to the African child in a climate change context. The right to education, participation, freedom from exploitation and even rights during migration are for the most part very 57 Children in a Changing Climate Coalition (n 16 above) 2. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) ‘Guidelines on determining the best interests of the child’ (2008) 20, 23. 59 Children in a changing climate coalition ‘Child-centred adaptation: Realising children’s rights in a changing climate’ (2015) 11; Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform ‘Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’ https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld (accessed 17 October 2016). 60 Article 31 of the African Children’s Charter. 61 UNICEF (n 11 above) 7. 58