Knowledge sharing initiative launched by AfricaAdapt

The network is funded by the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID) and the International Development Research Center's Climate Change Adaptation in Africa program (CCAA). The latter organisation, according to its website, is attempting “to improve the capacity of African countries to adapt to climate change in ways that benefit the most vulnerable.”

CCAA will now be even more capable of reaching its goals with the grants the Knowledge Sharing Innovation Fund is offering: up to US$10,000 for projects that overcome communication barriers between marginalised African communities.

Mary O'Neill, communications officer for CCAA, told MediaGlobal, “It is a small grants fund supported by the new AfricaAdapt network. Its aim is to support new and creative ways of communicating on climate change adaptation to vulnerable communities in Africa that are not easily reached, whether because of language, literacy, technological, or other barriers.”

Said barriers also include gender and disability. To overcome these, solutions must be creative, such as educating through theatre performances, songs, radio, art, videos, and comics.

Binetou Diagne, Knowledge Sharing Officer for Environmental Development Action in the Third World (ENDA Tiers-Monde) and AfricaAdapt, told MediaGlobal, “The essential element [of the fund] is that it engages marginalised groups in ways they can learn and share knowledge on climate change. Proposals should seek to address adaptation issues and principles such as conservation, health, urban infrastructure, disaster risk reduction, children, inclusion, and others.”

Diagne noted that the types of groups the fund is seeking to supply grants are “small-scale projects that offer innovative and practical ideas and strategies for communicating/sharing between different stakeholder groups, of vulnerability to climate change, impacts, and adaptation responses. It is aimed at small-scale initiatives proposed by African research groups, community-based organisations, co-operatives, networks and other local institutions in either urban or rural locations.”

Over the next two years, Diagne said that the fund will distribute anywhere between 15 and 20 grants, valued at a total of approximately US$107,000.

Due to the fact that Africans have dealt with changes in climate and environment for centuries, developing ways of coping, Diagne and his network believe they have inventive ideas to exchange with each other.

“The impacts of climate change are felt most severely at the local scale, where innovative practice can have a major impact on peoples' lives,” he said. “However, one of the key challenges that researchers have historically faced is finding the appropriate means to share information and knowledge at this scale. Africans can share valuable insights on both the strategies they are using to address climatic impacts at the local level, and on the most appropriate ways to communicate these messages, getting knowledge out to communities that other initiatives have often failed to reach.”

This initiative is another method adding to increased South-South cooperation in the region. Diagne said, “AfricaAdapt is hosted primarily in Africa and is composed of a predominantly African membership. The innovation fund, in offering grants to African-based initiatives working directly with African communities, seeks to reflect this orientation and encourages cooperation between a range of stakeholders in Africa concerned about climate change adaptation.”

With climate change posing ever-increasing challenges for the least developed countries, the majority of which are in Africa, knowledge sharing is becoming more important than ever to combat the issue. It is therefore AfricaAdapt's goal to find the means necessary for these communities to trade information and their experiences adapting to changes in the past in order to adapt for the future.

Article published courtesy of Media Global