Climate change communication and adaptation

Farmers and pastoralists, as well as policy makers, development and humanitarian programmes in Africa are searching for the best ways to adapt to the impacts of climate variability and change. Changes in seasonal rainfall patterns and more unpredictable, severe and frequent extreme events like floods and droughts are already being observed, threatening livelihoods in vulnerable communities.

Most adaptation strategies aim to spread or reduce potential risks, for example by using drought tolerant seeds, cereal banks, diversification to non climate dependent income sources, weather based insurance products, or early warning systems. Although such concrete measures are essential, climate change is continuous and unpredictable. Adaptive capacity to make informed and flexible decisions for action is becoming even more important to ensure resilience to climate change impacts.
Climate science and meteorology provide valuable sources of information that can help, not only in predicting future weather and climate (which can never be fully accurate), but also in developing understanding and skill in befriending and managing uncertainty. Seasonal forecasts for example, give probabilities of three different rainfall scenarios.

In the process of understanding how to us these probabilities, adaptive capacity is already strengthened. We can skilfully interpret and use the information by relating it to the risk assessments and decisions we make daily, and plan to spread or take risks, innovate or protect our assets, seize opportunities and make and modify decisions in response. Communicating climate information, in ways that users can understand and apply is therefore a critical resource to support effective adaptation to climate change.

This Joto Afrika issue shows how a range of programmes in Kenya, Niger and Ghana are developing approaches to incorporating communication of climate information into their work with farmers and pastoralists in climate vulnerable areas. Using a range of innovative communication mechanisms,
the programmes demonstrate how such information has reached and supported communities to make their own decisions, diversify their livelihood choices and protect their assets. In Niger, where seasonal rainfall is minimal and erratic, agro-pastoralists determine planting dates based on rainfall records acquired from their own community rain gauges. In Kenya and Ghana, locally relevant seasonal climate advisories are developed collectively among communities, sector service providers and meteorological departments, and disseminated widely.

Seasonal, and in some cases short range, forecasts with advisories are disseminated to farmers and livestock keepers in Kenya and Ghana through community held seminars, chiefs’ meetings, radio and mobile phones, churches and mosques, government and NGO extension services, and local early
warning systems. Farmers are benefiting from using forecasts at different stages in the production to market cycle.

All contributors are gratefully acknowledged here. These experiences clearly demonstrate how access and use of weather and climate forecasts, together with increased understanding of uncertainties as expressed in probabilities, can be transformed into useful and usable information. Such information empowers vulnerable communities to make their own calculated and climate informed decisions on livelihood and risk management choices, innovation and use of services and resources. Climate communication and information services are clearly an essential component for enabling adaptive capacity and effective adaptation