Mindset Change: Winning the war against poverty and perception through climatepreneurship in Africa

United Nations Environment Programme 2016, Baobab Programme Innovation Winner; 2023 Global Your Nottingham University Alumni Award Winner; Environment, Climate Change and Development Policy Expert - Dr Richard Munang, changes the debate and narrative on how environmental and climate action solutions can be leveraged as a source to spur entrepreneurship opportunities to win the war against poverty and perception in Africa and the world.
Called the "father of Innovative Volunteerism", Dr Richard Munang knows how to leverage environmental and climate action to accelerate socio-economic development. He has led enhancing skills retooling of youth through a mindset change mentorship tool called Innovative volunteerism, an innovative structured approach to guide and inspire youth to turn their passion into profits through driving environmental and climate action enterprises.
Over the past twelve years, Dr Munang has found that the essential thing we urgently need right now to address climate change and environmental crisis is our mindset perspective. Traditionally, discussions on climate change tend to focus on finance, technology transfer and capacity building alone. These are all important. But one most critical aspect that remains missing is human capital, which is the sovereign capital that is urgently needed for implementation. That is the mindset perspective we urgently need. Human capital, which is the ability of a population to leverage their skills, talents, aptitudes to turn challenges into opportunities, is up to 15times the value of natural capital and up to 4 times the value of produced capital. This then means that the primary, sovereign capital that we need to mobilize in Africa and the world towards driving climate action from a socio-economic lens is one - human capital. How we can get people to invest in climate action implementation from an enterprise lens leveraging on what is already accessible to them is the new perspective we urgently need to bring into climate action implementation in addition to the other traditional elements. This calls for a change in narrative and attitude.
In Mindset Change, Dr Munang argues that there are many climate action and environmental policies, strategies & plans that have been developed but lacks implementation. He points out that addressing this missing link needs innovative thinking that centres on Africa's powerhouse - the youth and its informal sector. We need a mindset change to happen wh