Event Description
The study of climate adaptation in Africa remains dominated by technical concerns such as how cropping patterns can be adjusted or how urban infrastructure can be upgraded to withstand extreme weather events. This is evident in a growing body of scholarship on climate and knowledge, which above all highlights the global political economy of unequal technological innovation and access to it in energy transitions: how the developing world is at risk of once again serving as providers of primary materials to wealthier economies rather than structurally changing how developing countries participate in the world-economy. Such global inequities in knowledge production and circulation are real but research has so far only sporadically teased out how these inequities shape, in concrete terms, the policy environment on the continent and constrain specific on-the-ground adaptations in regions like the Horn of Africa. Indeed, the Horn, despite being at the forefront of impacts of climatic shifts, remains peripheral in the conversation on forms of Indigenous knowledge and climate- its particular historical, institutional and socio-political context remains largely ignored.
This research project prioritizes extensive engagement with a diverse range of societal stakeholders and senior decision-makers to more closely study the production, transfer, and adaptation of various types of climate knowledge in a context that is highly vulnerable to climatological upheaval but also fragilized by four decades of catastrophic war- that of Somalia. Climate knowledge management and circulation in conflict-affected states presents a particular challenge but one that remains understudied. It investigates the ways in which Somali state institutions are currently structured and interface with populations and whether these configurations impede better access to and circulation of climate information services among communities but also constrain the flow of climate knowledge from the bottom up and reproduce inequities. Doing so will generate lessons relevant to a broader set of conflict-affected developing countries as to how institutional reconfigurations and new platforms for dialogue might offer not only greater academic understanding of the determinants of climate action but also lead to the identification of concrete options for policymakers who seek to harness climate data for individual and societal decision-making.
Event Speaker
Harry Verhoeven, Associate Director for Sub-Saharan Africa at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
Event Information
Free and open to the public; registration required. Contact [email protected] with any questions.
Part of the Co-Production of Knowledge Initiative at the Center for Science and Society.
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