Project to co-create climate resilience in diverse African contexts receives Dutch funding
A project that will involve citizens and local authorities in different African regions, as well as global stakeholders, in joint work to prepare for climate change has received a €6.9 million grant from the Dutch Research Agenda.
IHE Delft is one of more than 20 partners in the consortium behind the project, titled ‘Climate Resilience in Diverse African Contexts: Co-Creating Knowledge ∞ Action Chains’ (Climares).
The project focuses on smallholders, fisherfolk, urban outdoor workers, pastoralists and displaced people in various African countries. Through participatory digital and face-to-face research, it will co-create climate story lines and advocacy methods to ensure that weather and climate information becomes accurate and actionable. It aims to advance the resilience of vulnerable populations.
Margreet Zwarteveen, IHE Delft Professor of Water Governance and University of Amsterdam (UvA) professor, co-leads a core work package on fisherfolk, while Joyeeta Gupta, IHE Delft Professor of Law and Policy in Water Resources and Environment and UvA, professor of environment and development in the Global South, co-leads a core work package on global connections, linking African context with global climate policies and support frameworks.
Effective climate adaptation measures
A key principle for the project, Zwarteveen said, is that effective climate adaptation measures must be based on the actual practices of those grappling with the effects of climate change on a day-to-day basis.
“The idea is to learn from their actions, by jointly discussing how effective these actions are and by engaging in attempts to amplify those that are promising – possibly by combining them with advanced weather prediction tools,” she said. “We’re not aiming for grand and quick technological solutions, but more modest and slower pathways of collaborative experimenting that changes all who are involved.”
The Dutch Research Council (NWO) awarded the grant as part of the NWA-ORC 2023 funding round.
“The idea is to learn from their actions, by jointly discussing how effective these actions are and by engaging in attempts to amplify those that are promising”.
Margreet Zwarteveen
Professor of Water Governance
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