Resource

Collaborate with climate stakeholders

Stage 2

This stage of the localising climate projections process involves organising around the vision of the community most at risk. Once their vision is created, time for the community to organise themselves to work together, connect with existing organisations and initiate communication to gather information on climate projections and plan ahead is essential.

It is also crucial to begin gathering knowledge and data – both traditional/indigenous and academic/technical – so that, in the latter steps of the process, the community and local actors are able to make informed decisions.

Additional support or collaboration from other stakeholders (like National Meteorological Office, climate centres or think-tanks, universities and other organisations with expertise in weather and climate – as well as other local and national groups addressing the impact of climate change) should be sought. In doing so, a process of beginning to explore knowledge between different stakeholders and build partnership between them is achieved.

Practical approaches

Practical ways to organise around the vision of the community most at risk include:

  • Ensure it is their vision you are organising around
  • Bring existing community representatives and leaders to the forefront of the process; encouraging them to take decisions about their roles in the overall planning process
  • Create and identify collaboration opportunities with various stakeholders
  • Speak with community members and gather their traditional knowledge of the environment, climate and weather
  • Speak with community members and gather information from secondary sources or openly available knowledge on environment, climate and weather

Introduction

Engaging the national meteorological agency and climate research institutions in your work, and engaging in their work by bringing perspectives of local actors, offers opportunities to discuss how you can effectively work together.

Some of the ways disaster reduction organisations can actively support the work of national meteorological agencies and climate researchers include:

  • Supporting more inclusive reach of national public weather and climate services
  • Co-producing services to ensure they are relevant for at risk people living
  • Assessing the accuracy of their forecasts (forecast verification)
  • Providing feedback on forecast use and resulting impacts

You can work with national meteorological agencies to jointly identify potential improvements in the format, communication and content of the services they provide. This will, in turn, require that you have established a common understanding of your respective aims and ways of working and identified areas of shared concern.

A vital first step is ensuring sufficient appreciation of core climate concepts and how to appropriately use weather and climate information both amongst the at-risk groups you work with and for your own disaster reduction organisation. It is equally vital to strengthen forecasters’, and climate researchers’, understanding of the specific local contexts that weather and climate information seeks to inform.

It is important to invest in ongoing dialogue to build the trust and the individual and institutional linkages required for sustained partnership. Sustained partnership allows your organisation to stay abreast of emerging scientific understanding on the climate. It also enables national meteorological agencies and climate researchers to demonstrate the tangible benefits of their work, deepen their contextual understanding of climate-related risks and localise forecast impacts and research on climate-related risks. Crucially it will support them in understanding any gaps or barriers in making these studies and findings available to civil society and, hopefully, allow them to address this for improved accessibility and usability where needed.

Feedback on forecast use and resulting impacts

Disaster reduction organisations can use their existing monitoring systems to demonstrate changes in access to, use and benefits of climate services. Sharing the approaches you use to monitor the impact of your work, you could discuss with the national meteorological agency and national climate researchers where these could support their work. It is also useful to discuss the benefits of both qualitative and quantitative approaches. While surveys can, for example, demonstrate the economic benefits of strengthening use of climate services, personal testimonies are powerful communication tools for both policy makers and people living in similar contexts.

Key points in strengthening partnerships with national meteorological agencies and climate research institutions

Experience has highlighted the importance of:

  • Formalising relationships through MOUs or letters of intent to clearly specify areas of collaboration
  • Ensuring the involvement of National Meteorological Services and/or climate researchers at project development phase to enable initiatives to be undertaken in sustainable and impactful ways
  • Investing in co-developing training to strengthen:
  • Disaster reduction partners’ appreciation of climate services and how they can appropriately support decision-making
  • National meteorological services and climate researchers’ appreciation of the decision-making contexts that climate services seek to support
  • Jointly identifying how collaboration may support the National Adaptation Plan and implementation of the National Framework for Weather and Climate Services.

Where to find weather and climate information

Observational data

Short-term (weather-seasonal)

Long-term (climate projections)

Risk-Informed Development

How to strengthen collaboration

  • The How to Strengthen Collaboration Guide highlights how CSOs can strengthen their partnerships with other local actors; this should be considered when working with climate experts and other planning agencies in regards to accessing and using climate projections

Advocating for access to information

  • If civil society organisations face difficulties in accessing information, the National Advocacy Toolkit can be adapted and used to influence policy change in order to release climate projection information to local actors.
Stage 1

Project partners

Our Risk-Informed Development Guide was produced as part of our Local Leadership for Global Impact project. The project and all related content was funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). All content is the sole responsibility of GNDR and does not necessarily reflect the views of the BMZ.

Visit their website

Our Local Leadership for Global Impact project is implemented in partnership with Diakonie Katastrophenhilfe.

Visit their website
Back to top