ActNowFilm: Gernot and Dawda – Food Systems
Find out about Gernot Laganda and Dawda Cham, participants in ActNowFilm: Youth Climate Leaders as Agents of Change
Gernot Laganda
Gernot Laganda leads the Climate and Resilience Service at the United Nations' World Food Program (WFP). He supports WFP Country Offices and the governments they serve to understand the effects of climate change on food security, develop strategic measures to reduce climate risks in livelihoods and food systems, and make innovative climate finance instruments work for vulnerable communities.
He joined WFP from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), where he managed the world’s largest climate change adaptation program for smallholder farmers. He has worked with NGOs supporting disaster relief and reconstruction projects in Afghanistan and Tajikistan; serving as Humanitarian Program Specialist with the Austrian Development Agency; and managing climate and environmental programs with the United Nations Development Program in South Africa and the Asia/Pacific region.

Dawda Cham
Dawda Cham is a Gambian climate change activist and the Deputy Executive Director of HELP-Gambia. He mobilises civil society organisations and facilitates multi-stakeholder partnership arrangements with public and private sector entities to co-design and implement climate change, environmental, and disaster risk reduction projects, especially in the most vulnerable communities.
Dawda is an active member of YOUNGO, where he is part of the NDCs and Adaptations Working Groups. He is the Co-Lead of the Partnerships and Fundraising Working Group of Africa Youth Mobilisation for COP. He was the Lead of the first LCOY The Gambia. He was Country Coordinator for The Gambia during COY16 and has contributed to authoring the Global Youth Statement. Dawda was The Gambia’s sole delegate in the International Youth Climate Delegates Program of the COP28 Presidency.

Find out more about the participants in this year's ActNowFilm
ActNowFilm participants 2024