Facilitating the flow of information between policy-makers and scientists in Sub-SaDear haran Africa.

Through my research and the 12 month scoping study for the ACX, I have already built many excellent
personal relationships with key stakeholders and individuals with influential voices at local, national and
international levels. I have successfully connected UoR climate scientists and the Sub-Saharan team
in CAFOD (NGO) to the IoP Campaign for Africa, to support the teaching of weathe-rclimate science at
primary school level in 6 different countries across Sub-Saharan Africa. A proposal will shortly be
submitted to Comic Relief for funding.
Through using links developed through the West Africa Forecasters Handbook KE project and
my co-leadership of a chapter with the African Centre of Meteorological Applications for
Development (ACMAD, Zilore Mumba) to primary and secondary users. The local forecasters as
primary users of scientific knowledge of weather prediction, have direct links to secondary users,
their customers, in various sectors including agriculture, hydrology and water resource planning,
health epidemiology, energy, fisheries, shipping and off-shore oil production.
Through my research links with AMMA and Africa-THORPEX. I will use my active participation
with researchers to share the learning of the ACX and the opportunities offered to link through to
the policy-makers.
Through my work linked to Reading’s Internationalisation Strategy. I am currently organising a
workshop in Khartoum as part of the University’s Sudan Initiative. This will prove useful in
building new relationships with the HEIs and government ministers in Sudan and for meetings
with the National Met Services and NGOs based in Khartoum. There will be many subsequent
synergies with this initiative that I can use as the Fellowship activities progress.
Potential opportunities for generating economic impact: Opportunities to enhance economic
impact exist through industry interest in obtaining climate information. I will exploit myc urrent research
links to support capacity at African HEIs through jointly supervised research projects, similar to the
model used in Reading eg. Hiscox Catastrophe Modelling – I have just been awarded a CASE
Studentship with Dr Hodges (NCEO/ESSC), starting October 2011 working in the Financial service
sector. There is a high degree of interest in climate information in relation to hurricane activity linked to
African weather systems. Also with Fugro GEOS - Measurement, consultancy and forecasting service
for oil companies - interested in understanding the impact of African squal llines on oil platforms in the
Gulf of Guinea.
In addition, I will exploit the EU summit meetings I participate in, to develop new contacts with industry
that have strong investment interests in Africa (eg. TOTAL, Shell, Vodafone). These can be channeled
to provide further support for the ACX activities through their charitable foundations.
Within the School: Reading is developing a new MSc courses on African Meteorology in partnership
with the Met Office. The new research partnerships formed through the ACX will benefit from these
courses and the interest in supporting PhD students remotely through joint supervision arrangements
with African HEIs. I will bring these to the attention of the HEIs I work with in the Africa ACX to help
generate new research and teaching collaborations. We have also had preliminary discussions to link
up with the European distance learning course for Sub-Saharan African students, spear-headed
by Prof Polcher (Head of AMMA-EU, Director of Research for LMD, Paris).
IT Sector: There are also business opportunities for mobile phone communications and cloud
computing. The new ESSC Virtual Observatory offers opportunities for linking industry to decisionmakers
and end-users. New business investment in mobile Early Warning Systems wil l bring
technological development and reinvestment opportunities to Africa with potential job creation .
How and why I can make effective KE and impact more probable: The UK Africa Climate science
community have developed links with operational partners and end-users sporadically and largely independently of each other. Climate science needs to be focused and translated effectively between
user communities to maximise progress towards locally-driven adaptation and mitigation solutions. By
working at the science-policy interface and being immersed in the KE activities needed, I can bring my
skills and experience of KE and working in Africa (see Sections 9, 10) to bring our climate sceince
community together and focus research direction through dialogue with pol icy-makers and through
identifying their priorities. The scoping study and letters of support confirm the science community’s
Page 8 of 22
interest in doing this through the ACX activities I co-ordinate. Without this fellowship to create and
manage the ACX initiative, barriers will remain between climate scientists and policy-makers. Socioeconomic
impact will be more achievable through establishing a mechanism whereby dialogue
between NERC scientists at the forefront of their research and policy makers in government and
NGO’s will be made easier, less time-consuming and more effective. Lessons learned will be shared
widely through the Africa Climate Exchange portal and through discussion, reports of exchange case
studies and presentations.
Assumptions, risks and mitigation: There were a number of assumptions when the ACX plan was
formed. These were:
(1) Our climate expertise will match the stakeholders’ different needs .
(2) The ACX will make a tangible difference to the decision process for policy-makers and in
exchanging knowledge we will learn which questions are significant and relevant for future African
climate science research.
(3) The proposed activities are the best way to encourage interactions.
(4) Climate variability and change is a barrier to development that the policy-makers need to address.
The key risk is that the different stakeholders will not want to engage with the process. The Scoping
Study and the letters of support refute this. This mitigates the key risk and supports the first three
assumptions. I have been able to develop a set of preliminary research questions based on
stakeholder need that is congruent with the proposed activities and compatible with the expertise we
have at Reading. The third assumption is not one that I can resolve at the moment. I will continue to
assume that exchanging knowledge with policy-makers is the most effective tool to development but I
know that policy-makers have many other concerns with competing pressures eg. population growth,
urbanisation, poverty, globalisation of markets and land-use changes. The last assumption is wellfounded
given the passion of the participants at the Africa Adapt Symposium I have just come back
from - climate information and understanding it in the context of adaptation and climate compatible
development is paramount. I will continue to manage these assumptions and risks by maintaining
frequent one-to-one discussions to understand different stakeholder specific needs, to identify benefits
and rewards to all stakeholders and to match these carefully to the ACX objectives to maintain interest
and input. I will manage the project flexibly, using triage on underproductive avenues and developing
new productive ones.
How long it will take for the impact to be realised? The initial impact will be quick through the 1:1
meetings. The short term metrics for measuring impact are detailed in the time-bound work Plan
Sustained socio-economic impacts from facilitating conversation and these consortia collaboration
between climate scientists and government policy-makers and NGOs in Sudan and Senegal are likely
to continue after the lifetime of this fellowship. Other long-term measures of impact that could be
expected include: (1) Improved policy-relevant predictions in future IPCC Assessment Reports; (2)
Humanitarian/development policy-makers able to understand and respond rapidly to appropriate
information from the regional NMHS within Africa - compare with Red Cross example motivating the
project; (3) Reduced economic impact in Sudan or Senegal in the event of a climate-related shock due
to better informed policy-making. The timing of these impacts is unpredictable as it depends on the
timing of a climate-related shock, and the timescale for new policies to be developed and implemented
but we would expect to see impact within 5-10 years.
How will the ACX be sustained? The ACX will be sustainable through (i) the new relationships built
between stakeholders - a successful collaboration develops relationships that go beyond the life-time of
a project and which can be drawn on at some future point; (ii) “word of mouth” knowledge sharing; (iii)
Reading’s continued financial support for the ACX portal – populating the portal with continued casestudies
and connections will remain the the most effective way for NERC scientists to realize their
Impact Plan; and (iv) securing additional funding to extend the ACX framework of exchange and
consortia approach to other Sub-Saharan countries.(i) - (iii) are likely. (iv) will be investigated through
Task 4 - setting up meetings to discuss ongoing funding, in the following order, with :
1. UK government (DFID)
2. Corporate business/foundations eg. Rockefeller Foundation (UoR already has a Foundation grant
to support the Rockefeller Climate Change Units in East Africa); and Vodafone Foundation (who
are the prime player in the telecommunications sector in Sub-Saharan Africa.