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

不断变化的气候和极端天气事件正在对生态系统、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，例如由于严重程度增加和天气模式变化、人类移徙和流离失所、粮食不安全和由此产生的营养不良、极端炎热和空气污染增加而引入新的疾病。在许多非洲国家，由于目前气候和卫生部门之间缺乏知识交流和合作，这些影响给本已薄弱的卫生系统带来了额外的压力，并使人口面临更大的风险。由于国家系统之间的现有隔离，缺乏参与，使卫生系统和医疗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（SDG3）是实现可持续发展目标的核心，但要实现这一目标，卫生政策和从业人员需要意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。该知识交流计划旨在直接解决参与和信息共享有限的挑战，以及由此产生的卫生系统信息不足的问题。为了证明需要和促进知识交流，该方案将在加纳和乌干达之间实施一个比较知识交流方案。示范性知识交流平台将通过参与性研讨会、区域学习活动和政策圆桌会议，增加和促进气候和卫生部门之间的对话和接触。这将有助于共同开发必要的技术证据库，以便能够制定跨学科政策。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，该计划将通过展示有效的知识交流途径，促进科学研究应用于政策，从而对NERC科学产生更广泛的影响。该知识交流计划的总体目标是通过该地区的NERC科学为东非和西非的气候健康政策发展提供信息。通过这样做，跨部门知识交流将能够更好地支持关键政策，如卫生国家行动计划，并提供必要的技术证据基础。这将通过以下方式实现：1）使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，以支持传统上孤立的部门之间的参与和信息共享。（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。通过支持共同开发证据库，提高医疗保健提供者等从业人员对气候风险的理解。该项目将为国家、在区域和全球层面，通过政策简报、会议和向联合王国主要行动者的介绍，开展合作和分享成果。与NERC的主要项目合作，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。该方案还将为联合王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.