Facilitating Science to Policy, a Knowledge Exchange Platform for Climate-Informed Health Policy in East and West Africa

气候变化和极端天气事件对生态系统、人类健康、家庭生计和国民经济造成灾难性影响。这些气候引起的影响正在造成越来越多的与健康有关的脆弱性，例如由于天气模式的严重程度和变化而导致的新疾病的出现、人类迁徙和流离失所、粮食不安全以及由此导致的营养不良、极端高温和空气污染加剧。在许多非洲国家，这些影响正在给本已薄弱的卫生系统带来额外压力，并由于目前气候与卫生部门之间缺乏知识交流和合作，使人口面临更大的风险。由于国家系统之间现有的隔离，缺乏参与，使卫生系统和卫生保健提供者无法充分和准确地了解现有和即将发生的卫生危机。可持续健康和福祉（可持续发展目标3）是实现可持续发展目标的核心，然而，为了实现这一目标，卫生政策和从业者需要认识到气候对健康的影响。此外，卫生从业人员需要通过气候知情的卫生政策得到支持。这一知识交流计划旨在直接应对参与和信息共享有限的挑战，以及由此导致的卫生系统信息贫乏。为了证明需求和促进知识交流，该项目将在加纳和乌干达之间实施一项比较知识交流项目。参与性知识交流平台将通过参与性讲习班、区域学习活动和政策圆桌会议，加强和促进气候和卫生部门之间的对话和参与。这将促进共同发展跨学科政策制定所需的技术证据基础。知情的政策制定将有助于促进在卫生部门政策和实践中使用气候科学。此外，通过展示有效的知识交流途径，促进科学研究在政策中的应用，该项目将对NERC科学产生更广泛的影响。这一知识交流计划的总体目标是通过该地区的NERC科学，为东非和西非气候卫生政策的制定提供信息。通过这样做，跨部门知识交流将能够在必要的技术证据基础上更好地支持卫生国家行动计划等关键政策。这将通过以下方式实现：1)利用独特的参与性知识交流工具，如建设性对话机制、讲习班和政策圆桌会议，支持传统上孤立部门的参与和信息共享。2)利用科学研究（卫生、气象、气候科学、生计）为卫生和气候部门的决策者提供信息。3)通过支持共同开发证据库，提高从业人员（如医疗保健提供者）对气候风险的理解。该项目将通过政策简报、会议和向英国主要行动者介绍的方式，通过合作和分享成果，在国家、区域和全球层面提供扩大影响规模的机会。与NERC主要项目的合作，如为穷人释放地下水潜力（UPGro）、非洲未来气候和全球挑战研究基金，将通过展示有效的多部门参与和科学研究的应用，产生进一步的影响。该计划还将为英国的海外发展援助议程提供信息。

Changing climates and extreme weather events are resulting in catastrophic impacts to ecosystems, human health, household livelihoods and national economies. These climate-induced impacts are creating increasing health-related vulnerabilities such as the introduction of new diseases due to increased severity and shifting weather patterns, human migration and displacement, food insecurity and resulting malnutrition, extreme heat, and increased air pollution. In many African countries, these impacts are putting additional strain on already weak health systems and putting populations at greater risk due to the current lack of knowledge exchange and collaboration between climate and health sectors. The lack of engagement, due to the existing isolation between national systems prevents health systems and healthcare providers from being adequately and accurately informed about existing and upcoming health crises. Sustainable Health and Well-being (SDG3) is central to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, however, to achieve this, health policy and practitioners need to be aware of the climate-induced impacts on health. Furthermore, health practitioners need to be supported through climate-informed health policy. This Knowledge Exchange Program looks to directly address this challenge of limited engagement and information sharing, and the resulting poorly informed health systems. To demonstrate need and facilitate knowledge exchange, this program will implement a comparative knowledge exchange program between Ghana and Uganda. The Participatory Knowledge Exchange Platform, will increase and facilitate dialogue, engagement between climate and health sectors through participatory workshops, regional learning events, and policy roundtables. This will facilitate the co-development of the technical evidence base needed to enable interdisciplinary policy development. The informed policy development will help to facilitate the use of climate science in health sector policy and practice. Moreover, this program will create wider impact to NERC science through demonstration of effective knowledge exchange pathways to facilitate application of scientific research into policy. The overall objective of this Knowledge exchange program is to is to pull through NERC science in the region to inform the development of climate-health policy in East and West Africa. By doing this, cross-sector knowledge exchange will be able to better support key policies such as health national action plans, informed by the necessary technical evidence base. This will be achieved by 1) Using unique participatory knowledge exchange tools such as constructive dialogue mechanisms, workshops, and policy roundtables to support engagement and information sharing across the traditionally isolated sectors.2) Using scientific research (health, meteorology, climate science, livelihoods) to inform policy makers across health and climate sectors.3) Improving the understanding of climate risks with practitioners such as healthcare providers through supporting the co-development evidence base.The project will provide opportunities for additional impact scale at national, regional and global level by collaboration and sharing findings through policy briefs, meetings, and presentation to key UK actors. Collaboration with major NERC projects such as Unlocking the Potential of Groundwater for the Poor (UPGro), Future Climate for Africa, and the Global Challenges Research Fund will create further impact by demonstrating effective multi-sector engagement and application of scientific research. This program will also inform the UK's Overseas Development Assistance agenda.