2. Including the excluded: Connecting climate change and ICTs

Patrick P. Kalas, Programme Officer, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Division of Knowledge and Learning Processes/Knowledge Sharing and Networking/ICT Team⁶

Key points on ICTs and climate change

• Climate change is not a new development phenomenon but amplifies and magnifies existing development challenges, hindering efforts to reduce suffering and alleviate poverty.

• Climate change is a social justice issue. The most vulnerable are the least responsible for its causes, but will be most affected while being least informed about the impacts on their livelihoods and generally excluded from policy discourses.

• Strategically integrated ICTs, such as community radios, mobile phones, knowledge centres and interactive media, are enabling tools that help to reduce climate change vulnerability and risk, while including the voices of those most affected for political advocacy.

• ICTs contribute tangibly to climate change mitigation/adaptation strategies through providing access to relevant information, raising awareness at the grassroots level, and facilitating learning and practical knowledge sharing at the community level, while empowering the poor and marginalised to raise their voice for political accountability and concrete action.

• Current mainstreaming approaches that integrate ICTs as a strategic tool into development programmes (e.g., education, health, governance) can be directly applied to climate change strategies.

• A multi-stakeholder approach is central to ICT climate change mitigation and adaptation interventions.

• There is a need for systematic awareness raising and capacity development among all development stakeholders on how to integrate and utilise ICTs in climate change programmes.

⁶ While this conceptual overview relies on established institutional concepts at SDC, it ultimately represents my personal views. I wish to acknowledge two key personalities who have been instrumental over the years in helping to shape our current knowledge and practical understanding about the strategic use of ICTs in development and poverty alleviation: Ambassador Walter Fust, former Director-General of SDC, and Dr. Gerolf Weigel, former head of the ICT4D Division at SDC. Their extraordinary vision for a people-centred approach to ICTs in development and subsequent courage to implement this vision remain an inspiration to the field at large and to me personally. I would like to also express my appreciation to the various BCO partners who have asked me to make this editorial contribution on behalf of the Alliance. Behind each partner of this Alliance there are extraordinary human beings who share a tireless commitment to and belief in the potential of integrating ICTs for poverty alleviation and social justice.

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