Mobilizing Climate Information for Decision-Making in Africa: Contrasting User-Centered and Knowledge-Centered Approaches

Abstract

This study examined ways in which climate information was mobilized for use under Future Climate for Africa (FCFA), an applied research program to improve the use of climate information to support medium-term (5–40 years) policies and planning in sub-Saharan Africa. Past research has underscored the interdependent relationship between user engagement and knowledge mobilization in effective climate knowledge uptake. The study used a document analysis of 46 program ou tputs and semi-structured interviews with 13 FCFA researchers to contrast user-centered and knowledge-centered approaches to effectively mobilize climate information uptake for use. A total of 20 knowledge mobilization tools and approaches were identified across the program and analyzed. This analysis reveals a complex interplay between user engagement and knowledge mobilization processes, including the strategic or flexible use and re-use of knowledge products as the user engagement process evolved. These findings have important implications for future programmatic design and planning in promoting engagement and mobilization approaches that can contribute to long-term policy and decision-making.

Stakeholder engagement in gender and climate change policy processes: Lessons from the climate change, agriculture and food security research program

“…The engagement of policymakers and decision-makers in the co-production of gender analyses (particularly from the policy arena) resulted in policy briefs that identified gender-related gaps and informed the actions to be undertaken (Masiko et al, 2019;Chingarande et al, 2020;such publications include AGNES, 2020). Those policy briefs then served as leverage points through which to further advance collaborations, similar to a finding of Harvey et al (2021) which identified policy briefs as boundary objects through which the spheres of decisionmaking and science could be linked.…”

Develop medium‐ to long‐term climate information services to enhance comprehensive climate risk management in Africa

“…However, this is still not at scale that is sufficient to address the critical role of medium to long-term projections in long-term planning, particularly for local decision makers (Jones et al, 2015). Most existing efforts for advancing MLT CIS are targeted towards increasing access for and use by national and international planners (Harvey et al, 2021;Sultan et al, 2020) to inform long-term development planning and risk management and to avoid maladaptation (Payo et al, 2016). Some other CIS efforts, for example, FRACTAL target sub-national decision makers such as city governments (FRACTAL, n.d.;Janes et al, 2020) Assessments attribute the limited development and use of MLT in CIS to three drivers.…”

Inclusive, Cross-Sectoral and Evidence-Based Decision-Making for Resilience Planning and Decision-Making in a Devolved Context

“…Influences related to information and knowledge that must be taken into account include the power and status of those generating the knowledge (Fazey 2012), what information is available, access, and capacity for discernment. Other important aspects include how the information is presented, learning style, information absorptive capacity, willingness to query the information provided, level of information processing, the interplay between user engagement and knowledge mobilisation (Harvey et al 2021) and degree of confirmation bias and distraction level (Gorman and Gorman 2017;Ariely 2010). Hitziger et al (2019) developed a tool for evaluating multi-stakeholder initiatives at the science-policy interface with an emphasis on transformation and systems knowledge.…”