Using participatory media in communication of adaptation strategies for climate change in Tanzania

Dr. Angelika Hilbeck, Juanita Schlaepfer-Miller, Eugenio Tisselli, ETHZ; Dr. Flora Ismail, University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM)

This project investigates how participatory media, such as rich drawings and a custom mobile phone application, can be used by farmers to communicate climate change adaptation methods to policy makers, climate scientists and other farmers.

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Visitor center, Swiss National Research Institute (PSI)

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canal*SAHARAUI

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Introduction to project

Internet usage is still low in Africa, reaching about 10.9% of the population; yet it has grown 2,357.3% over the last 10 years, almost five times more than the rest of the world.

More than a third of the population in Africa are cell phone owners, and this rate is growing fast.

Beyond their standard modes of operation, such technologies can be used to empower communities, by giving them an unfiltered medium through which their voices can be heard.

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Introduction to project

'Farmer led research', see the work of Fetien Abay from Mekelle University, Ethopia

Climate scientists also recognize need for participatory research that not only values indigenous knowledge, but uses knowledge which is locally based.

Therefore a holistic, participatory approach is necessary and recommendations “cannot be made at regional or national level but must be essentially local”.

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Rural farmers project

Farmers in the Bagamoyo district of Tanzania share multimedia cell phones

With a special mobile application they can send tagged images and audio recordings direct to a web-page

This creates a participative body of evidence

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Why Rich Pictures – Soft systems methodology

A mechanism for learning about complex problems by drawing detailed ("rich") representations of them.

Consist of symbols, sketches or "doodles” Of more value to the creator than to other stakeholders A process known as Action Learning Can be done as a group

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Key benefits of project

Realtively simple technology Project should be long running Equipment remains property of farmer group Community building Enables them to collect body of evidence to present to

policy makers Enables the farmers to become active participants in

networked environments.

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Examples of images from farmers

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Folksonomies

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Bottom-up categorization Allows the discovery of emergent topics Can be a model for a community's issues

Folksonomies and Africa-Adapt

A question that arose in researching this project was how we could digitally link to other media/climate change adaptation projects in the Africa-Adapt network.

considerable colloquial knowledge already recorded in many videos and other recordings which are posted on the network.

Yet this information is not readily available or categorized other than with a keyword or full-text search which does not find information in the interviews.

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Folksonomies and Africa-Adapt

if these videos or radio recordings were tagged as they were uploaded (or retrospectively) then a wealth of information could form a clickable folksonomy, adding value to existing projects and extending their impact.

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