Facilitating the flow of information between policy-makers and scientists in Sub-SaDear haran Africa.

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Through my research and the 12 month scoping study for the ACX, I have already built many excellentpersonal relationships with key stakeholders and individuals with influential voices at local, national andinternational levels. I have successfully connected UoR climate scientists and the Sub-Saharan teamin CAFOD (NGO) to the IoP Campaign for Africa, to support the teaching of weathe-rclimate science atprimary school level in 6 different countries across Sub-Saharan Africa. A proposal will shortly besubmitted to Comic Relief for funding.Through using links developed through the West Africa Forecasters Handbook KE project andmy co-leadership of a chapter with the African Centre of Meteorological Applications forDevelopment (ACMAD, Zilore Mumba) to primary and secondary users. The local forecasters asprimary users of scientific knowledge of weather prediction, have direct links to secondary users,their customers, in various sectors including agriculture, hydrology and water resource planning,health epidemiology, energy, fisheries, shipping and off-shore oil production.Through my research links with AMMA and Africa-THORPEX. I will use my active participationwith researchers to share the learning of the ACX and the opportunities offered to link through tothe policy-makers.Through my work linked to Reading’s Internationalisation Strategy. I am currently organising aworkshop in Khartoum as part of the University’s Sudan Initiative. This will prove useful inbuilding new relationships with the HEIs and government ministers in Sudan and for meetingswith the National Met Services and NGOs based in Khartoum. There will be many subsequentsynergies with this initiative that I can use as the Fellowship activities progress.Potential opportunities for generating economic impact: Opportunities to enhance economicimpact exist through industry interest in obtaining climate information. I will exploit myc urrent researchlinks to support capacity at African HEIs through jointly supervised research projects, similar to themodel used in Reading eg. Hiscox Catastrophe Modelling – I have just been awarded a CASEStudentship with Dr Hodges (NCEO/ESSC), starting October 2011 working in the Financial servicesector. There is a high degree of interest in climate information in relation to hurricane activity linked toAfrican weather systems. Also with Fugro GEOS - Measurement, consultancy and forecasting servicefor oil companies - interested in understanding the impact of African squal llines on oil platforms in theGulf of Guinea.In addition, I will exploit the EU summit meetings I participate in, to develop new contacts with industrythat have strong investment interests in Africa (eg. TOTAL, Shell, Vodafone). These can be channeledto provide further support for the ACX activities through their charitable foundations.Within the School: Reading is developing a new MSc courses on African Meteorology in partnershipwith the Met Office. The new research partnerships formed through the ACX will benefit from thesecourses and the interest in supporting PhD students remotely through joint supervision arrangementswith African HEIs. I will bring these to the attention of the HEIs I work with in the Africa ACX to helpgenerate new research and teaching collaborations. We have also had preliminary discussions to linkup with the European distance learning course for Sub-Saharan African students, spear-headedby Prof Polcher (Head of AMMA-EU, Director of Research for LMD, Paris).IT Sector: There are also business opportunities for mobile phone communications and cloudcomputing. The new ESSC Virtual Observatory offers opportunities for linking industry to decisionmakersand end-users. New business investment in mobile Early Warning Systems wil l bringtechnological development and reinvestment opportunities to Africa with potential job creation .How and why I can make effective KE and impact more probable: The UK Africa Climate sciencecommunity have developed links with operational partners and end-users sporadically and largely independently of each other. Climate science needs to be focused and translated effectively betweenuser communities to maximise progress towards locally-driven adaptation and mitigation solutions. Byworking at the science-policy interface and being immersed in the KE activities needed, I can bring myskills and experience of KE and working in Africa (see Sections 9, 10) to bring our climate sceincecommunity together and focus research direction through dialogue with pol icy-makers and throughidentifying their priorities. The scoping study and letters of support confirm the science community’sPage 8 of 22interest in doing this through the ACX activities I co-ordinate. Without this fellowship to create andmanage the ACX initiative, barriers will remain between climate scientists and policy-makers. Socioeconomicimpact will be more achievable through establishing a mechanism whereby dialoguebetween NERC scientists at the forefront of their research and policy makers in government andNGO’s will be made easier, less time-consuming and more effective. Lessons learned will be sharedwidely through the Africa Climate Exchange portal and through discussion, reports of exchange casestudies and presentations.Assumptions, risks and mitigation: There were a number of assumptions when the ACX plan wasformed. These were:(1) Our climate expertise will match the stakeholders’ different needs .(2) The ACX will make a tangible difference to the decision process for policy-makers and inexchanging knowledge we will learn which questions are significant and relevant for future Africanclimate science research.(3) The proposed activities are the best way to encourage interactions.(4) Climate variability and change is a barrier to development that the policy-makers need to address.The key risk is that the different stakeholders will not want to engage with the process. The ScopingStudy and the letters of support refute this. This mitigates the key risk and supports the first threeassumptions. I have been able to develop a set of preliminary research questions based onstakeholder need that is congruent with the proposed activities and compatible with the expertise wehave at Reading. The third assumption is not one that I can resolve at the moment. I will continue toassume that exchanging knowledge with policy-makers is the most effective tool to development but Iknow that policy-makers have many other concerns with competing pressures eg. population growth,urbanisation, poverty, globalisation of markets and land-use changes. The last assumption is wellfoundedgiven the passion of the participants at the Africa Adapt Symposium I have just come backfrom - climate information and understanding it in the context of adaptation and climate compatibledevelopment is paramount. I will continue to manage these assumptions and risks by maintainingfrequent one-to-one discussions to understand different stakeholder specific needs, to identify benefitsand rewards to all stakeholders and to match these carefully to the ACX objectives to maintain interestand input. I will manage the project flexibly, using triage on underproductive avenues and developingnew productive ones.How long it will take for the impact to be realised? The initial impact will be quick through the 1:1meetings. The short term metrics for measuring impact are detailed in the time-bound work PlanSustained socio-economic impacts from facilitating conversation and these consortia collaborationbetween climate scientists and government policy-makers and NGOs in Sudan and Senegal are likelyto continue after the lifetime of this fellowship. Other long-term measures of impact that could beexpected include: (1) Improved policy-relevant predictions in future IPCC Assessment Reports; (2)Humanitarian/development policy-makers able to understand and respond rapidly to appropriateinformation from the regional NMHS within Africa - compare with Red Cross example motivating theproject; (3) Reduced economic impact in Sudan or Senegal in the event of a climate-related shock dueto better informed policy-making. The timing of these impacts is unpredictable as it depends on thetiming of a climate-related shock, and the timescale for new policies to be developed and implementedbut we would expect to see impact within 5-10 years.How will the ACX be sustained? The ACX will be sustainable through (i) the new relationships builtbetween stakeholders - a successful collaboration develops relationships that go beyond the life-time ofa project and which can be drawn on at some future point; (ii) “word of mouth” knowledge sharing; (iii)Reading’s continued financial support for the ACX portal – populating the portal with continued casestudiesand connections will remain the the most effective way for NERC scientists to realize theirImpact Plan; and (iv) securing additional funding to extend the ACX framework of exchange andconsortia approach to other Sub-Saharan countries.(i) - (iii) are likely. (iv) will be investigated throughTask 4 - setting up meetings to discuss ongoing funding, in the following order, with :1. UK government (DFID)2. Corporate business/foundations eg. Rockefeller Foundation (UoR already has a Foundation grantto support the Rockefeller Climate Change Units in East Africa); and Vodafone Foundation (whoare the prime player in the telecommunications sector in Sub-Saharan Africa.