4. Report back: BCO Learning Day on ICTs and Climate Change

By: Alan Finlay, Open Research

BCO Learning Days build on the core work areas of BCO members and draw on the expertise and experience of the group in order to harness synergies and capitalise on collaboration. An ICTs and Climate Change Learning Day was held in Johannesburg on 19 December 2008, and looked to highlight the role of ICTs in meeting the global challenge of a warming planet. This report back captures some of the key points raised during the discussions.²⁵

A holistic approach to communications is necessary

Communication is not just about sharing information, but about a process that is interactive and participative: it is an exchange that means listening and talking. Participants emphasised that a holistic view of communications was necessary when working at the local level. Channels of communication are not restricted to ICTs, but include face-to-face communication, meetings, traditional mass media and telephones. As one participant put it: “Theatre, video, song, photographs, dance, body language, even the postal service are all principle parts of the communications environment.”

Key considerations for any communications initiative dealing with climate change were:

• The need to create buy-in amongst the beneficiaries of the communications drive. Without buy-in, interventions would not be effective. Communities need to be mobilised and encouraged to accept that climate change is a reality, and that it is likely to change how things have been done in the past.

• All kinds of communications platforms need to be leveraged in order to engender understanding and behaviour change, and to provoke appropriate action.

• Communities need to know that they can trust the communications processes set up. Relevant actions that are necessary in response to climate change need to be identified in communities. For instance, there may be the need to move houses because of rising flood levels. Once these have been identified, communities need to be informed of options, and have the opportunity to share and discuss their fears.

• Communications practitioners need to think about all the development needs of a community when planning an intervention. This includes access to basic infrastructure such as water, roads, electricity and sanitation.

• Essential communications questions need to be asked, such as, “Is the infrastructure in place to warn people of an approaching hurricane or tsunami? If not, what needs to be done?”

• Finally, communities need to be empowered to hold government accountable.

Brainstorm #1: ICTs and climate change – key challenges.

Working towards inclusion

One of the key challenges facing communications practitioners is that while the poorest and most vulnerable are likely to be affected the most by climate change, they are generally excluded from decision-making processes, and are often not well informed on policy developments and other macro-level considerations. In this regard, communications and climate change represent a social justice issue.

Conversely, people working on the ground (such as farmers) are the closest to some of the effects of climate change (such as changing weather patterns) and are therefore valuable sources of information about the changes taking place, and even on the most appropriate remedial actions to take.

Moreover, communities are often isolated from scientific projects and therefore alienated from the results and conclusions of these projects. How to properly involve communities in scientific research is a key issue. By including the community in research, a conversation could be started and understanding achieved. Technology could be used to encourage communities to monitor and map climate change (e.g., using blogs or portable weather monitoring technologies).

Advocacy and action

Participants emphasised that developing countries are actors in the climate change space (e.g., deforestation and overgrazing by local communities are directly contributing to climate change). As a result they need to be proactively involved in finding solutions.

However, it was pointed out that in developing contexts the objective is changing the behaviour of people who are often on the edge of survival. If your livelihood is precarious, then changing what you do is risky, and this poses a challenge to advocacy initiatives.

It was felt that communication work should target people as individuals, and that communications campaigns or initiatives need to personalise climate change in order to make it meaningful and relevant. The importance of creating a sense of ownership and transparency in communications initiatives was stressed.

It was argued that the climate change challenge needs to be framed positively. While “mitigation” and “adaptation” are important categories, a third category dealing with “opportunities” would be helpful and inspiring. For instance, climate change is an opportunity to put participation, as well as women’s issues, back on the global agenda. It is also an opportunity for individuals and communities to examine their lifestyles and make changes for the better.

Climate change offers people a common point of reference and purpose. It requires collective action towards a mutually beneficial goal, and is a cause for global solidarity. At the same time, climate change challenges the development paradigm that asserts that development is the primary path to growth. This means that there may be a need to refocus advocacy issues and campaigns.

Sustainable technology

There is a need to consider the sustainability of ICT interventions – which now includes environmental sustainability. The use of solar power needs to be encouraged, high quality refurbished PCs should be used where appropriate, and a strategy for the end-of-life environmentally sound disposal of technology should be built into project plans from the start.

Brainstorm #2: ICTs and climate change – clustering the concerns.

Telling the climate change story

While the relevance and quality of programming are important, one of the challenges facing developing countries is that the level of journalism is not always good. There is a need for capacity development so that stakeholders – such as journalists and ICT and communications practitioners – can report on climate change more knowledgably.

Because communications initiatives are a process, journalism should aim to catalyse discussions in communities. As one participant put it: “The media should not crystallise on a conclusion too quickly.”

The role of trusted “infomediaries” was emphasised when working with communities, as well as “folksonomies” – or meaningful information categories developed by communities – rather than top-down taxonomies. The potential role of storytelling in sharing adaptation strategies and challenges was also emphasised.

Challenges and opportunities

Key challenges and opportunities identified by the Learning Day are summarised in Table 2.

Table 2: Key challenges and opportunities

Challenges

Opportunities

Behaviour change is difficult, as comparable communications challenges such as HIV/AIDS show. The issues are complex. There is a need for awareness raising and the translation of difficult issues into understandable terms. The role of public policy and regulatory frameworks is unclear. Access to ICTs is very uneven There is a lack of governance accountability and delivery.

ICTs can be used to create “interaction” (communication processes). They are an opportunity for collaboration and communication, and simply to create a conversation. ICTs should offer value to organisations. They can offer new solutions. Climate change is an opportunity to rethink development, and an opportunity to offer solutions that stimulate the local economy. There is an opportunity to use the global economic crisis to think about development in terms of climate change. There is an opportunity to subsidise solutions through taxation.

Participants felt that key focus areas for ICT practitioners in the context of climate change should be:

1.Sharing knowledge and raising voices.
2.Using ICTs in policy advocacy and for encouraging behavioural change.
3.Using ICTs to facilitate an understanding between people and policy makers.
4.Recognising that one cannot use ICTs without acknowledging how their production, use, and disposal impacts on the environment. Positive steps need to be taken to remedy this.
5.Mainstreaming ICT use into existing initiatives.
6.Raising dialogue without closing down discussion. There is a need to keep voices of dissent alive.

²⁵ The full report for the Learning Day can be downloaded at www.bcoalliance.org

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