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BRACED: Developing and Communicating Information that Can Support Climate Resilience: Learning from Zaman Lebidi, Burkina Faso

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Authors

Emma Visman, King’s College London and independent consultant (emma@vngconsulting.org.uk); Malick Victor, independent consultant; Camilla Audia, Frances Crowley, Mark Pelling, King’s College London.

BRACED
Building Resilience and Adaptation to Climate Extremes and Disasters

Aim of the project

The BRACED project aims to enhance the resilience of people at risk of climate shocks and stresses within four provinces across East, Centre North and North of Burkina Faso. One component focused on the development and delivery of accessible, timely, relevant climate information.

Dates

January–August 2014 (project development phase): January 2015–March 2018 (main project)

Countries

Burkina Faso

Domains of change resulting through Zaman Lebidi.

Domains of change resulting through Zaman Lebidi.

Domains of change resulting through Zaman Lebidi.

Adapted from: Silva Villaneuva et al., 2016

Aim of co-production

Co-production related to climate services included the following:

Context

ANAM
Agence National de la Météorologie
(Burkina Faso)

Bringing together partners operating at local, national and international scales, Zaman Lebidi worked at village level with local governance structures and community organisations. With particular focus on women and children, the project targeted 1.3 million people living in areas where the principal livelihoods are farming and livestock. Prior to the project, among the partners and at-risk people in the areas where project activities were undertaken, access to, and use of climate information, was low. Products of the Burkina Faso National Meteorological Agency/Agence National de la Météorologie (ANAM) were considered unreliable, overly technical and inaccessible.

Who was involved and what were their roles?

Coordinated by Christian Aid, the BRACED Zaman Lebidi consortium brought together NGOs working in water infrastructure, health, agriculture, gender and communications, the national meteorological agency ANAM, the Met Office, Radiodiffusion Télévision du Burkina (RTB), Internews, King’s College London (KCL) and national academic institutions. KCL developed a learning framework and coordinated a series of learning events on communicating climate information, integrating climate information within local government decision-making and co-production related to resilience building. The Met Office provided training, including post-event analysis, forecasting and verification, and ANAM and the UK Met agency shared differing climatological datasets and climate information needs. Project partners, with ANAM, jointly developed climate information tailored to support agro-pastoralists in the zones of project focus. Internews trained and provided mentoring to radio producers and technicians to enable the broadcast of this information. They also coordinated the co-production of a Lexicon of Weather Terms, bringing together the expertise of a wide range of actors.

What was co-produced?

How was co-production done?

Identify key actors and build partnerships; build common ground; co-explore need

Recognising the complexity of factors that impact on the climate resilience of rural households in Burkina Faso, the Zaman Lebidi consortium brought together multiple actors with diverse expertise working across scales. Time was required to build a common understanding, with some partners having no prior experience of working with national meteorological services and others no operational experience in Burkina Faso. There were language constraints between Anglophone and Francophone partners and populations speaking different local languages. There was also a need to translate between the sector-specific, technical terminologies of meteorology, climate science, humanitarian aid, disaster risk reduction, development and resilience-building programming and academic research. During the Project Development Phase, KCL developed a framework and principles to support agreement about ways of working and to promote internal and wider learning.

A workshop in 2016 provided a first opportunity for the national meteorological service to directly discuss with humanitarian and development partners the climate information which they produce. This provided a foundation from which to develop a common understanding about the processes required to produce and deliver decision-relevant climate information. Partners recognised the importance of engaging with local knowledge in building the trust, cultural appropriateness and livelihood relevance of national meteorological service’s forecasts.

Co-develop solutions

Partners jointly developed climate information tailored to support agro-pastoralists in the zones where BRACED partners were operating. Uncertainty over long-term responsibility for translating climate information into contextualised advice on livelihood approaches highlighted the need for ensuring engagement with extension services.

Internews worked with radio stations which, prior to the project, had mostly not been broadcasting weather or climate information. They provided production and communication training, emphasising the importance of bringing together local and scientific knowledge and ensuring inclusion of diverse perspectives. Joint research among the focus at-risk populations enabled the identification of appropriate ways and terms for communicating climate information, as well as existing good practices for addressing climate risks.

Internews also coordinated the co-production of a Lexicon of Weather Words and Terms that sought to reduce misunderstandings between meteorological experts, journalists and decision-makers. Bringing together farmers, journalists from local radio stations, community leaders and meteorological agency officials over two days, the group identified 517 key terms that required definitions in non-technical language. The development of the definitions took nine months and involved meteorological experts from ANAM and the Met Office, journalists, researchers from the National Centre for Scientific and Technological Research/Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique et Technologique (CNRST), the National Council for Emergency Assistance and Rehabilitation/Conseil National de Secours d’Urgence et de Réhabilitation (CONASUR), farmers, linguists, translators, sociologists, engineers, forecasters and community leaders.

Co-deliver solutions

RTB broadcast ANAM forecasts in local languages, which were then relayed, by local radios, to rural people, listeners’ groups, municipal councillors and village councils for development, and early warning, committees. The Radio Listening Committee, comprising Internews and journalists specialising in national languages, monitored the quality of radio programmes.

ESOKO
Digital solutions for agriculture

Forecasts were simultaneously broadcast via Digital solutions for agriculture (ESOKO’s) EcoData platform via mobile phone to 1 200 intermediaries. The platform made it possible to both directly reach targeted groups and collect instantaneous feedback.

Ongoing learning

To enable learning to inform ongoing work, KCL facilitated a series of learning events. Learning was synthesised in a series of policy briefs and discussed in the project’s Steering and Technical Committee meetings, as well as being shared widely.

Lessons to learn from

References