RIfS Africa Task Team

 

RIfS is launching an Africa Task Team for researchers living and working in Africa to define and address their regionally-specific challenges on climate information for society. The Task Team will facilitate and steer this work in Africa, and be a model for how RIfS might organize similar activities in other regions of the world.

The Task Team will become a body of the RIfS representing the regional interests of Africa. This Task Team is majority African in membership and co-chaired by researchers living and working on the continent. The problem of the “missing middle” between climate research and stakeholder contexts appears in every region, and this Task Team focuses on the specific issues within Africa, and help shape the agenda for investment in research capacity in the coming years. 

There will be dedicated coordinating staff capacity, based in Africa, to support the Task Team during an initial 2 year period, thanks to a partnership with the CLARE project (see below).

Expected outcomes

  • Fostering collaboration and partnerships around frontier research on the generation, analysis, construction, and communication of robust climate change information aligned and engaged with stakeholder contexts;
  • Developing climate literacy and relevant capacity among the web of actors engaged in managing climate risk and building resilience to climate impacts;
  • Building an Africa Community of Practice around transdisciplinary approaches to climate and society;
  • Synthesizing lessons from pilot studies around the continent.

The team is tasked to:

  • Define and participate in CLARE pilot projects across Africa;
  • Collectively advocate for the development of the pan-African research community;
  • Develop a prioritization of needed resources to develop research capacity on the African continent in the coming years;
  • Contribute to journal articles and/or white papers on these issues;
  • Work with the RIfS Working Group on Robust Information to share African perspectives about robust climate change information for decisions with counterparts in other parts of the world.

The task team consists of experts spanning over the following fields:

  • Climate data incorporating observational records
  • Advanced statistical methods in climate applications
  • Global and/or regional climate modeling, and/or analysis of physical processes in climate model outputs
  • Social science-informed methods for assessing user needs and/or communicating complex information
  • Seasonal-to-decadal prediction
  • Operational climate service provision

About CLARE

CLARE  is  a  flagship  research  programme  on  climate  adaptation  and resilience,  funded  mostly  (about  90%)  by  UK  Aid  through  the  Foreign Commonwealth  and  Development  Office  (FCDO),  and  co-funded  by  the International  Development  Research  Centre  (IDRC),  Canada.  CLARE  is bridging critical gaps between science and action by championing Southern leadership  to  enable  socially  inclusive  and  sustainable  action  to  build resilience to climate change and natural hazards. Learn more about CLARE: www.clareprogramme.org

RIfS has partnered with CLARE for an initial two year period to support a Science Officer based in Africa to help coordinate across diverse, but related, efforts around the continent. There will also be two postdocs based at African institutions to work on pilot projects identified by the Task Team. The Task Team will provide guidance for these personnel, who will be contracted as remote members of the RIfS International Project Office.

Members

TBC

Please direct your questions to any task team members, or the RIfS IPO: admin@wcrp-rifs.org