Most citizens of the developing economies suffer from climatic extremes mainly due to information poverty and neglect. The climate knowledge brokers of any given country act as sustainable links between the government of the day and people in need of information.
Information from climate knowledge brokers is always important for local people to use for planning as well as decisionmaking purposes. However, that is not usually the case as local people sometimes find themselves overwhelmed by disastrous situations that could have been avoided in the first place.
There is need for smooth chain linkages of the government policy makers, climate knowledge brokers and the local people or their representative bodies, so that they are able to reach out to each other. The local people, who always lack the fundamental voice or sustainable platforms to air their grievances, do not need vital information when the situation would have deteriorated or when the centre no longer holds. But they always carry the unsustainable baggage of information illiteracy bordering on the framings of unwilling ignorance.
All the people involved in this community of practice should be important stakeholders in the fight against poverty. Despite these perceived connections, the buck stops with the government and all participants always look to the government for procedural blessings. If the centre can firmly hold, while everything appears to add up, the climate knowledge brokers will be willing participants to map the way forward. But if the government becomes an elusive and slippery partner then climate knowledge brokers should come out and refuse to be part of a failing process.
Any given country has a wide range of knowledge brokers that cut across sectors and are helpful in their own right, that is a given. I have alluded to climate knowledge brokers because that is part of my discourse community and community of practice. I equally and firmly hold other communities of knowledge brokers in high esteem and unwavering respect. But my central focus in today’s unfolding discussion is the climate knowledge brokers, first and foremost.
All climate initiatives sometimes find political decisions as the stumbling block rather than environmental ones. There are also conflict-based discourse coalitions within the climate knowledge brokering stable itself. That is the beef between climate scientists and climate change communicators. While climate scientists are a bit of a closed group who guard their stable jealously, climate change communicators need to thaw the perceived or unperceived tensions and build bridges with their science counterparts. Therefore, climate scientists and climate change communicators are both climate knowledge brokers and as such they need to complement each other’s efforts in good faith.
The integrity of scientific findings has always been upheld and applauded hence they make the country move forward, but the scientific stable cannot afford to ignore their communication counterparts. Both stables should resist moves that undermine the integrity of climate change knowledge. They both need to defend their community of practice as one block. Sometimes both groups do feel ignored by the government policymakers. What is actually needed here is how to improve information sharing and make their voices heard in order to cultivate sustainable climate response action. These climate knowledge brokers need to ensure that there are no information gaps regarding knowledge provision to the relevant people who actually deserve it at most.
As such, the provision of climate change-related information is regrettably uneven in most developing economies. In most cases, government policymakers wait for a major climate effect to take place in order to hear them talk about climate change adaptation and mitigation. Especially these days when the ghost of United Nations COP 21 Paris Conference is lingering, its climate dosage every now and again, not from informed climate knowledge brokers, but from climate stuttering high-ranking government officials who always move mountains in their attempts to factor what IPCC, UNFCCC or UNECA stand for.
- Chamisa under fire over US$120K donation
- Mavhunga puts DeMbare into Chibuku quarterfinals
- Pension funds bet on Cabora Bassa oilfields
- Councils defy govt fire tender directive
Keep Reading
The scarcity of climate information to those who need it should be the main worry of the climate knowledge brokers. The public always struggle with what they should do with shreds of information that by chance come their way.
Developing countries need climate knowledge brokers that appeal to the cross-section of the society. If climate knowledge brokers act as gatekeepers of climate information then the public would be ill-prepared to absorb climate shocks and stresses. Farmers need information to plan for the agricultural season and when drought is looming, they need to be told how best to prepare for such a scenario.
If violent floods are equally threatening, the responsible authorities need not to wait until the whole community is swept away. When officials talk of rain-water harvesting, they always emphasise building of dams which is expensive, without encouraging people to engage in sustainable small-scale water harvesting techniques and storage.
Collaborations among a cross-discipline of knowledge brokers is needed in connecting the people to social safety nets. A needs analysis on the part of local populations should be harnessed so that recipients are involved in articulating what they want and how they would want to see things happening.
Developing economies have not reached a stage where climate change information can be articulated from an informed and a deeper level like HIV and Aids issues. It is the duty of climate knowledge brokers to enable people to reach that stage. Why should it be like that?
The government should established information centres country wide. Climate information service centres would equip communities with adaptation and mitigation skills needed in the fight against the effects of climate change.
Climate knowledge brokering is a sustainable pillar of environmental ethics and it requires high levels of intrinsic well-being.
The saturation point of climate information can never be achieved in the environment of lack of trust and vision. The political economy of climate change in developing countries should not feed from deception and half-truths or totally null-talks. Instead, we need information that is based on holistic climate interpretation to enable people to make well-informed climate-smart choices. The dearth of climate literacy should not be tolerated at all costs. Information value-chains are needed to facilitate the spread of risk communication to the living and generations to come so that when we are all gone, our descendants should not worry about what kind of people we were in the first place. That is, the people who failed themselves as well as the environment.
●Peter Makwanya is a climate change communicator. He writes in his own capacity and can be contacted on: [email protected]
