Bridging the gap between science and practical experience on climate change in southern Africa

27th- 30th January 2009, Civil Society Organisations (CSO's) meet with climate experts in Cape Town, South Africa. For four days, they discussed how to improve their cooperation in addressing climate change in the region. Eight Southern African countries and the UK attended the workshop. Citizens Global Platform (CGP) Tanzania presented a case study in this workshop as one of its international advocacy on ‘making marginalized voices heard on climate change processes'. The Secretary General of UNA Tanzania, Reginald Munisi, represented CGP Tanzania in the workshop. His message at the meeting emphasized on the importance of marginalized voices in climate change debate.

Today Southern African countries are among the most vulnerable in the world to the impact of climate change. Professor Denis Dweyer from Commonwealth Geographers Bureau, opened the workshop saying: "to reduce vulnerability of the region the gap between scientists and CSO's in Southern Africa must be bridged".

The Participants of the Geographers and CSO's representatives from southern Africa and the UK. They discussed the challenges they face in cooperation between academia and civil society in their countries. They also discussed a range of issues from technical aspects on using information from climate models to more practical issues on risk reduction projects done by local CSO's at community level. From the discussions, it was evident that both the CSOs and Climate experts need each other. For example, CSOs need knowledge and information from geographers to improve their work in communities. Geographers need CSOs to reach communities for testing their ideas and in communicating information to different actors in a simple manner. workshop included

Need for marginalized voices on climate change

Reginald Munisi representing CGP gave a presentation and highlighted the importance of marginalized groups in climate change adaptation and mitigation. He shared models and tools developed by CGP that experts and CSO's could use in engaging marginalized groups to discuss climate change. Video is one example of the tools CGP uses to bring voices of marginalized to international forums. During the Helsinki Process conference in Dar es Salaam, CGP showed a video on climate change. On the Video, there was an old Maasai woman (around 85 years old) sharing her experience on climate change. She explained how she now has turned to a less profitable trade of selling traditional jewelry since the crops have failed and most of her family cattle have died due to increased drought.

Bridging the gap

At the end of the workshop, the CSOs and Climate Change experts agreed on the importance of taking steps to improve cooperation on climate change. The workshop conclusions, on steps to take, included;

· To develop joint regional projects to address climate change.

· Build regional expertise-sharing mechanisms among the academia and CSO's on climate change.

· Promoting use of indigenous knowledge in climate change adaptation

· Working together to influence the regional and international climate change debate.