Carlijn Nouwen

Carlijn co-founded the Climate Action Platform for Africa (CAP-A) in 2021. She leads the organisation's data and analytics work, shapes its strategy and creates its various programmes. She  set up CAP-A’s collaboration with UNECA, the UNFCCC High-Level Champions team and various innovator partnerships. 

CAP-A works to unlock Africa’s potential as a global hub for climate action. Africa’s demographics, growth trajectory and natural resources, coupled with extremely low levels of current emissions, mean the continent can go beyond net-zero to a substantial net-negative carbon footprint sooner than any other part of the world. Becoming a leading player in climate action opens a path for Africa to grow to middle-income status with dignified livelihoods for all. 

Carlijn's work focuses on competitiveness, inclusive industrialisation and inclusive business and investment in Africa. Prior to founding CAP-A, she spent nearly a decade as a senior partner with Dalberg Advisors in Africa, leading Dalberg's inclusive business work. In this role, she developed and pioneered Dalberg's toolkit on competitiveness assessment and investment prioritisation, leading projects in this space across sectors and countries for public, private and social sector clients. Prior to Dalberg, Carlijn spent 7 years at McKinsey and Company in the Netherlands and worked for the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. With her Master’s degree in Engineering she also leads the work on technical innovation at CAP-A.