Innovative Application of ICTs in Addressing Water-related Impacts of Climate Change (ICTWCC)

Grantees received mentorship and tailored training to enhance their skills in different research methodologies and in specialised aspects of climate science. Research undertaken through the programme covers a range of relevant topics. One study, for example, proposes a land management plan to minimise the risks that hurricanes pose to forests in Nicaragua, where a hurricane destroyed 400,000 hectares of forest in 2007. In Kenya, a study found that farmers are already changing practices to adapt to climate change, but that sharing additional climate information through mobile phones and radio, in local languages, can further improve farmers' adaptation efforts.

The rationale is that, in addition, ICTs could be used to inform decisions and to coordinate efforts during climate change events, and to strengthen social networks, inclusiveness, and processes of learning and self-organisation. This could lead to new strategies and innovative policy approaches in the climate change field, especially with respect to the management of water resources. To that end, grantees are actively sharing their research results with policymakers and other climate science researchers, including at high-profile international events such as the 9th Community-Based Adaptation conference and the XVth World Water Congress. In Guatemala, grantees organised the International Congress on Climate Change and presented their findings to more than 600 stakeholders in the region who are working on climate change adaptation in the water sector. To date, the grantees have produced 64 unique research outputs (including 11 peer-reviewed publications and 2 book chapters).

The University of Nairobi is working closely with regional programme partners, namely Vietnam's Asian Management and Development Institute and the Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza in Costa Rica. The three partners are taking a leadership role in enabling new developments in the field by fostering network development and South-South collaboration. The programme also assisted grantees in establishing their own network for shared learning and peer exchange, which is now being used to identify common applications of ICTs across regions. Programme partners also established the South-South Collaboration Learning and Adaptation platform, an interregional network committed to further building of research capacity on water-related impacts of climate change, with a special emphasis on drawing from developing-country knowledge and experience.

For more information on the grantees and the project resources that emerged from the project, visit the ICTWCC website.

Climate Change

A monitoring and evaluation framework designed by the University of Nairobi indicates that approximately 70% of PhD grantees rated their skills in data collection methodologies, tools, and techniques as "high" after two years in the programme, compared with 42% at the beginning. For the same time period, 60% of PhD grantees rated their skills in climate change policy formulation as "high", compared with 26% at the programme's onset. For both assessment criteria, the proportion of PhD grantees rating their skill-levels as "high" had more than doubled after two years in the ICTWCC programme.

In sharing lessons learned, ICTWCC asserts that ICT applications could play an important role in urban planning (e.g., geographic information system (GIS) applications) and in monitoring and providing relevant environmental information to support decision-making processes contributing to the adaptation of human habitats. Within the water sector, ICTs could contribute towards: improvements in water resource management techniques (water use efficiency); strengthening the voice of the most vulnerable within water governance processes and towards greater accountability; monitoring the quantity and quality of water; providing access to locally relevant information and knowledge needed to reduce risk and vulnerability; and networking and knowledge sharing to disseminate good practices and foster multi-stakeholder partnerships among others. "ICTs are therefore seen not just as tools, but are socio-economic enablers that have transformative potential and associated challenges within adaptation processes. In considering research projects that mainstream ICTs, there are a number of factors that need to be taken into consideration including:

• The need to avoid an ICT-centric approach, rather focus on a needs-based approach to water security that is people-centric;
• Adopting a holistic and integrated approach in which scalability is taken into account;
• The need to build on the extensive experience already gained in the respective fields of ICTs, climate change and water;
• The need to ensure that knowledge is translated into practice - the linkages between research/knowledge creation (including indigenous knowledge) on the one hand, and action on the other hand, should be linked to policy development in support of more effective water resource management; and
• Ensuring that information and knowledge flows are bidirectional, with the development of mechanisms in which formal, rigorous, research-based data and information can be integrated with bottom-up, community-generated information."