On 14-15 November, 2018, members of the West African Science Service Center on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL) and the African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analysis 2050 (AMMA-2050) came together with city, national and regional decision makers to develop a roadmap to strengthen linkages between researchers and policymakers in West Africa. The workshop took place at the WASCAL Competence Centre in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

With a focus on open discussion, most of the workshop took place through exercises undertaken in small groups that drew in the wealth of the expertise present. Groups conducted problem tree analysis and network mapping to uncover the underlying reasons for missing links between researchers and policymakers in enabling climate science to better support decision-making in West Africa. Keynote presentations focused on strengthening resilience to climate-related risks within the disaster risk reduction and agricultural sectors across West Africa. Participants identified researchers’ capacities, technical support to policy makers, and resources for strengthened science-policy-practice engagements as key opportunity areas.

One group’s problem tree analysis of ‘What are the missing links between researchers and decision makers to enable climate science to better support decision-making in West Africa?’.

Three knowledge-exchange approaches were discussed to bridge the science-policy divide. The first was the use of a board game, the ‘Plateau Game’, to gather and share potential impacts of future climate change. The second approach was a form of participatory theatre, called ‘Theatre Forum’, employed to discuss power relations between different actors. The third was the ‘Innovation Platform’ approach where networks of actors concerned with a particular value chain collectively consider technical, social and institutional constraints in order to create innovation. The successful use of these approaches demonstrated that games and theatre can be entertaining and effective ways to engage with decision makers.

Farmers playing Plateau Game. Source: CIRAD

Workshop participants also proposed practical steps for WASCAL to strengthen its engagement with policy makers, including:

Incentivising researchers to engage with policy- and decision makers;
Developing a module on communication and policy engagement in WASCAL graduate schools;
Reinforcing WASCAL’s Public Relations Office and Communications Unit, strengthening the organisation’s Communication Strategy with multiple approaches for public engagement and dialogue;
Establishing a science-policy broker in WASCAL to identify entry points and develop tailored messages for key policy processes, as well as monitoring and responding to significant emerging issues, such as major flood events;
Strengthening WASCAL’s Memoranda of Understanding with partnering institutions;
Identifying regular opportunities for ongoing training and sharing of emerging learning on approaches that support effective science engagement with policy- and decision makers;
Conducting a survey of decision makers’ perceptions of WASCAL, undertaking a cost-benefit analysis to demonstrate the value of evidence-based policy making, and developing a joint training for policy makers with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to strengthen their capacities to make effective use of scientific findings.

While the challenge of the science-policy divide is often raised, few events seriously address it or provide practical ways of strengthening researcher engagement with policy makers. Dr Arona Diedhiou, Chair of the WASCAL Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC), recognised the workshop as a significant initiative for developing strategic regional linkages between researchers and policymakers.

The full workshop report is publicly available here.

Theatre Forum Organized in Senegal. source: ISRA, Senegal

Vice President Ousainou Darboe has affirmed that in line with the national development policies, President Adama Barrow administration is willing to support all efforts geared towards reducing the impact of climate change.

He said that there is no longer any doubt that human activities cause serious global warning yet human being are a threat to the environment, so is climate change a direct threat to human and a source of many other threats and disasters. These remarks were made during a two-day seminar on ‘Climate Change and Renewable Energy’ and ‘Climate Change and Land Use’ which was jointly organised by the Ministry of Higher Education, Research, Science and technology (MoHERST) in collaboration with the University of The Gambia (UTG). The programme was funded by the German Ministry of Higher Education and Research Science (BMBF) held at a hotel in Bakau. “Climate change is acknowledged as a growing threat to the environment, livelihood, food security and economic growth; thus food insecurity for instance comes with economic risk as scarcity of staple crops cause crises in prises,” he stressed.

In the Gambia specifically, the vice president stated that food insecurity cause a serious threat as a result of acute erratic rainfall patterns, draughts and floods all of which can be associated with climate change. He said “Some of which force our rural farming population especially the youths to abandon the agricultural lands and move to urban areas thereby increasing the population and unemployment”.
He further pointed out that climate change also contributes to irregular migration to Europe as the youths explore opportunities elsewhere.

The Vice President reminded that the seminar serves as an important step towards implementing The Gambia’s commitments on the 21st conference of parties of UN conference on climate change held in Paris in 2015” he stated. For his part, Badara Joof, the minister of MoHERST said that they should go beyond the seminar and generate issues of climate change and the environmental impact that it has. “I want to domesticate this within the context of the UTG where we would domesticate the knowledge that we would gain from Germany and WASCAL, index it into the Faculty of Research on Climate Change and Environmental Management” he said.

He added that it will enable them to maintain the knowledge since they know that they are having challenges of environmental issues. “It is part of the policy changes and the orientations of the UTG and MoHERST policy in general that research is as important and crucial to things because if we are teaching for the future,” he elaborated.

Senior Scientist in climate modeling and climate change of WASCAL, Dr. Mouhamadou Bamba Sylla has represented WASCAL at the just ended 7th Conference on Climate Change and Development in Africa (CCDVII), which took place in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi.

As a member of the panel discussion on “Climate Information Services in support to the NDCs”, Dr. Sylla advocated for a stronger continental political leadership for the generation of knowledge about the climate change impacts of 1.5oC and 2oC global warming on development sectors of Africa; the strengthening of the National Meteorological Services for a free and open access data culture as well as the development of robust climate information at different timescales for supporting the NDCs implementation.

CCDVII was under the theme “Supporting the Implementation of the Paris Agreement in Africa: From Policies to Action”. The three-day conference brought together stakeholders from governmental, scientific and academic divides such as the universities, regional climate centres and research centers; civil societies, development partners and private sectors, to examine Africa’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and to define actionable climate interventions.

The Conference on Climate Change and Development in Africa was organized by the United Nations Economic Commission (UNECA) for Africa in partnership with the Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA).

Watch excerpt interviews of CCDVII and media interview of Dr. Sylla

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8ZxxQC-4HA