2.5. ICTs, climate change adaptation and development

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The key message emerging from the conceptual and practical linkages between ICTs and climate change suggests that there are significant lessons to be learned from existing good practices of integrating ICTs as a strategic tool in development programmes. In other words, the ICT4D community is not “jumping on the climate change bandwagon”; rather, the existing and proven approaches in other development sectors can be directly applied within climate change programmes to render them more efficient and effective.15

The use of ICTs for climate change adaptation can be mapped onto Weigel and Waldburger’s three categories, as shown in Table 1.

Table 1:Use of ICTs for climate change adaptation



ICTs
for development

ICTs
and climate change

   

Using
ICTs as strategic tools in
climate change programmes (i.e., adaptation) to increase efficiency
and effectiveness.


Suggested
ICT tools to support
local information and knowledge sharing including community media
platforms (e.g., interactive community radio), mobile phones,
telecentres and knowledge centres.

Using
ICTs as strategic tools in
climate change programmes (i.e., adaptation) to increase efficiency
and effectiveness.


Suggested
ICT tools to support
local information and knowledge sharing including community media
platforms (e.g., interactive community radio), mobile phones,
telecentres and knowledge centres.

Access

Using
ICTs to facilitate access
to and sharing of relevant information and knowledge.

Access
to relevant information
(awareness raising) and knowledge (locally embedded know-how) to
develop coping strategies to reduce risk and vulnerability.

Voice

Using
ICTs to strengthen the
voice of poor, excluded and disadvantaged people in decision making
and for self-expression.

Strengthening
the voice of those
most affected by climate change in decision-making processes so that
there is political accountability and meaningful action.

Networking

Using
ICTs for networking and
human communication while fostering multi- stakeholder partnerships
to scale up initiatives.

Knowledge
sharing among
communities, individuals and institutions to identify and share good
practices and coping strategies. Creating multi-stakeholder
partnerships for roll-out.


15 Annex 1 provides a conceptual overview of the “5 I’s of ICTs and Climate Change”.

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