7 December 2009. Dakar, Accra, Nairobi, Brighton, Copenhaegen. Nine projects win funds to engage African communities in climate change knowledge sharingAfrica’s poor and vulnerable communities have first hand experience of climate change and are eager to learn more about what they should do to become climate resilient. However, these communities can be isolated from formal exchanges of knowledge on how to build resilience. AfricaAdapt’s new Knowledge Sharing Innovation Fund has been set to reverse this and has just announced the winners of its 2009 call.
The winners are nine groundbreaking projects led by research groups, community-based organisations, co-operatives and other local institutions in close partnership with poor and hard-to reach communities.. Each project will receive up to US$10,000 and pilot new practical ideas and strategies to promote valuable exchanges across stakeholder groups that have so far been working in isolation. These projects were selected from almost 500 applications from across the continent.
‘In Angola, oral testimonies by members of rural communities in isolated parts of the countries will fill a critical gap in meteorological data allowing scientists to produce climate change scenarios urgently needed to help the country to build climate resilient policies’ says Jacqueline Nnam from AfricaAdapt.
‘In Ghana, slum dwellers affected by flooding, erosion, and other climate-related impacts will have the opportunity to learn about how to ease the impact of weather related shocks. This project will address their vulnerability to climate change, which currently goes unrecognised by Government’s policies.’
‘In Morocco, testimonies from elders on how the climate has changed and of local farmers on how lives in the oasis has changed as a result will help documenting local knowledge on climate adaptation. This initiative will both encourage the sharing of knowledge across generations and revive the collective memory of the community.
Learn more about the winning projects. Summaries available
