Abstract
Science-based
policies constitute for climate change issue an important and effective
weapon that can be used by policy makers to improve conditions of local
populations. In order to improve the knowledge exchange process that
leads to the formulation of such policies, this study was undertaken in
Ghana, particularly in Accra. It aims to describe climate change policy
process, assess the transfer and use of scientific knowledge and
determine perceived barriers to knowledge exchange. Data were mainly
collected from policy documents and evidence generating institutions.
They include policy actors, coalitions and beliefs, occurrence and
purpose of using scientific evidence in policy documents, push efforts
towards policy makers, and barriers to knowledge exchange. They were
mainly analysed through descriptive statistics using SPSS 16.0.
The
climate change policy-making process was participatory with research
and academic institutions mostly involved at the validation stage.
However, at the formulation stage, scientific evidence has been highly
used to prioritize strategies to address climate change. The content
analysis has revealed that scientific input is the most frequent (48%),
followed by input from ministries and input from NGO/CSO. This knowledge
input generated by evidence generating institutions is transferred to
policy makers through printed materials (60%) and meetings (50%). About
37% of them believe that policies and directions in the document are
relevant and can lead to climate change adaptation and mitigation.
Nevertheless, there are some barriers to climate change knowledge
transfer and use. They range from lack of research funding (55%) to
wrong perceptions of policy makers about scientists’ work (55%) and
differences between scientists and policy makers in terms of too
advanced knowledge produced (85%) with too technical approaches and
methods (60%).
Among others, we suggest the collaboration of all
evidence generating institutions to collect, centralize, and co-produce
policy briefs in an accessible language to policy makers, the resourcing
of existing science policy institutions to act really as boundary
organizations where policy makers can consult researchers.