Use of Climate Information for Early Warning and Community-based Planning

Summary

In Niger, CARE noted that the national early warning system (EWS) obtained much of its data from the various technical services based in their districts. This was then forwarded to the national level. Little or no information (e.g. on likely weather conditions, prices, possible food shortages) was sent to the communities for them to be able to take the necessary measures to adapt. Other than developing their own local adaptation strategies, the communities were often only passive recipients of food aid. Aware of these weaknesses, CARE Niger undertook the project of a community-based early warning and planning system (Adaptation Learning Programme – ALP). ALP uses participatory tools and processes to help the communities to develop Adaptation Action Plans.

Although most of the villagers are unable to read and write, it is possible to translate these plans into symbols.

The communities are learning to adapt their adaptation plans when they receive information from the seasonal weather forecasts.

This information includes:

Seasonal forecasts and local observation of climate change which are used for short-term planning covering the high degree of variability of rainfall from one year to the next.
Long-term climate forecasts (5-30 years) are used for medium- and long-term planning.

Process

The ALP strategy for using climate knowledge to strengthen the adaptation capacity includes several elements: • Connecting the communities to easy and timely access to climate information and messages using local and national meteorological services (in the local language) • Engaging the communities to share their local knowledge and collect local climate information, through voluntary farmers recruited by the communities • Disseminating climate information in a way suitable for the local context, using the local language, rural radio, cell phones, and through “Participatory Scenario-based Planning" • Helping the communities to learn to deal with the uncertainty of the knowledge about climate change, learning to work with probabilities and risk levels. • Strengthening the awareness-raising and risk management capacities and reducing the impact of a potential disaster (in the context of the adaptation capacity)

Impact

Impacts included: - Strengthening the intra and inter-community social relations, by involving women's groups, organising inter-community meetings to validate the information collected. - Helping the communities to use seasonal climate information to review their community adaptation action plans. - Giving the communities the opportunity to decide on the planting dates and other major crop measures based on immediate access to actual rainfall data.

CARE International's Adaptation Learning Programme (ALP) enables the communities to establish their own early warning systems, including the collection of rainfall and weather information by volunteers, and linking them to the official early warning system of the government.

Other

The project represented an innovative approach to leveraging an often neglected resource in the adaptation efforts: the knowledge, capacity and creativity of the rural communities themselves.

Summary

Process

Tell us about the extent to which the CBDRM intervention was ‘owned’ by the community. Were local skills and knowledge used? What was the role of the local government? How were the CBDRM activities coordinated? By whom?

Impact

Please reflect on how well the initiative has been able to continue beyond the end of the programme. To what extent were local resources used for the CBDRM activities? How long since programme completion have the CBDRM practices continued?

Please describe how lives have changed since the CBDRM project. Think about different people’s levels of resilience and vulnerability.

Other

Please provide us with any other information you think will highlight the sustainability of your particular CBDRM project. Feel free to add relevant pictures, photos, graphs or anything else that may highlight the sustainability of your project.