Fund your Fellow Policymaker

Hello! I am a young policy maker pursuing a degree at UCT. a prospective second-year student pursuing a Bachelor of Social Sciences majoring in Environmental and Geographical Sciences and Politics. Like many others, I was defunded by NSFAS due to an “approval error” midway through the year. As you might imagine, trying to secure funding in the middle of an academic year, especially for a humanities degree, has proven nearly impossible.

In 2024, I worked with a team of negotiators for South Africa in the United Nations Framework for Climate Change. My focus was on climate and gender justice, particularly securing robust funding for the Global South to ensure gender mainstreaming in climate adaptation and mitigation efforts. I have been entrusted with playing a role in transforming the national and international framework for climate policy and liaising with global institutions such as the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, and various embassies to do so.  However, I have not been spared from the impacts of the systemat...