Coordination, Capacity Development and Knowledge Exchange Unit (CCKE)

The CCKE has commissioned the following gap filling studies in support of FCFA research objectives:

• Scoping phase case studies and baselines to evaluate the needs of climate information users in the context of the capabilities and limitations of current science, focusing on Zambia, Rwanda, Malawi, Accra, and Maputo, as well as the ports and hydropower sectors.
• Scoping research on the political economy of long-lived decisions in several African contexts including, the Kafue River Basin (Zambia), Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), the Rufiji Basin (Tanzania), Maputo (Mozambique), Senegal, and the Lake Victoria Basin.
• A literature review  and economic case studies on the economics, political economy and behavioural science of accounting for long-term climate in decision making today
• An analysis of barriers, opportunities and good practice in Africa to support scientific capacity development in climate change related disciplines.
• An analysis to identify key climatic characteristics that influence tea production in Malawi and Kenya and adaptation methods to support long-term planning in tea production.
• Research to better understand how climate scientists can improve the communication and visualisation of uncertain climate information for decision makers and other non-experts.
• A climate risk screening tool for Rwanda’s national environmental fund, FONERWA, for grant managers, expert reviewers, and project developers to identify areas where climate risks and risk mitigation measures need to receive more attention within proposals.

The CCKE issues research grants and travel grants to support early career researchers affiliated to the FCFA programme. As of June 2018, we have supported 55 early career researchers, of whom 37 African, with FCFA Innovation Fund research grants and FCFA Mobility Fund travel grants. We also hosted an FCFA training day for early career researchers on communication of climate change, research impact and collaborative proposal writing skills.

In FCFA’s final research year (2018/19) the CCKE will focus on ramping up the communication of key messages from research partners to wider regional audiences. A central part of this will be coordinating a series of outputs that synthesis FCFA learning across research consortia and disciplines.