Four African Cities Secure Grants as Freetown Prepares for Africa Urban Heat Summit 2026
The announcement came during the Africa Climate Summit in Addis Ababa, where Ethiopia’s State Minister of Planning and Development for Environment, Climate Change and Demography, H.E Seyoum Mekonnen Hailu, joined CRA in unveiling the winners.
Four African cities — Accra, Paynesville, Monrovia and Kassa — have been awarded the African Urban Heat Resilience Grants by Climate Resilience for All (CRA), marking a fresh chapter in Africa’s fight against extreme heat. The announcement came during the Africa Climate Summit in Addis Ababa, where Ethiopia’s State Minister of Planning and Development for Environment, Climate Change and Demography, H.E Seyoum Mekonnen Hailu, joined CRA in unveiling the winners.
The grants, each worth $40,000, are designed to help cities quantify and map heat impacts, integrate findings into policy, and launch community-driven campaigns to raise awareness about the dangers of rising temperatures. The urgency of this work has never been clearer.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that the number of Africans facing heat waves lasting 15 consecutive days at 42°C or above could rise from 27 million in 2010 to 360 million by the end of the century under moderate warming — and could push to 440 million if warming exceeds 4°C. Women and vulnerable groups remain the hardest hit.
The programme builds on lessons from Freetown, where CRA co-designed the city’s first-ever Heat Action Plan. Now, Accra, Paynesville, Monrovia and Kassa will begin work to strengthen resilience through data-driven analysis, urban heat island mapping and public education.
Kathy Baughman McLeod, CRA’s Chief Executive Officer, described the announcement as “a signal of a new era of African extreme heat leadership for cities grappling with life and work in brutally hot conditions.” She emphasised that this era must be shaped by women’s voices, as they bear the brunt of heat impacts.
Freetown’s mayor, Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, congratulated the new grantees, saying their success showed that Africa was not waiting for solutions but leading the way towards a “cooler, healthier future.”
The mayors of the beneficiary cities echoed the urgency. Monrovia’s mayor, John-Charuk Saifa, said the funds would “strengthen capacity to identify hotspots, raise awareness and integrate resilience into city planning,” while Paynesville’s mayor, Robert Bestman, pledged to deliver the Urban Heat Island and Vulnerability Assessment Programme as a step towards sustainability.
Accra’s mayor, Hon. Michael Kpakpo Allotey, said the partnership would empower the city to confront urban heat challenges head-on through community-led planning and adaptation.
For Ethiopia’s H.E Seyoum Mekonnen Hailu, the initiative signals a turning point. “Let us commit today to turning these visions into action,” he said. “Let us ensure our cities not only survive but thrive in a changing climate.”
CRA’s work in Freetown has become a model for the continent. Since 2021, the NGO has worked closely with the city to understand the risks of extreme heat, particularly in markets where women traders lose up to 60 per cent of their income because of the scorching temperatures.
To address this, CRA has launched shade infrastructure projects in three of the city’s largest outdoor markets — Bombay Street, Congo and Dove Cot. These include solar-powered lighting for safety, clean cold storage and solar-powered fans. The aim is to deliver practical cooling solutions that improve women’s health, safety and livelihoods while remaining scalable and community-validated.
Mayor Aki-Sawyerr called CRA “a strong partner” but stressed that scaling the solutions required urgent investment. “The time is now to invest in the solutions that will protect lives, livelihoods and the future of African cities,” she said.
These efforts are expected to gather momentum when Freetown hosts the Africa Urban Heat Summit 2026 in April. Building on the inaugural edition held earlier this year, the summit will broaden its scope beyond West Africa and rally African mayors, policymakers, climate experts and communities around the shared challenge of extreme heat. CRA’s Baughman McLeod said the gathering would “energise more action to put women and vulnerable communities at the heart of projects, policies and financing.”
As the continent braces for an uncertain climate future, the grant programme and market projects point to a distinctly African-led approach: one rooted in science, community and resilience. For CRA, the work in Accra, Paynesville, Monrovia, Kassa and Freetown is just the beginning of a wider push to shield lives, livelihoods and dignity from the intensifying heat that is shaping Africa’s urban story.
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