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Getting the Message Across : Reporting on Climate Change and Sustainable Development in Asia and the Pacific: A Handbook for Journalists (UNESCO, 2018)

This Handbook has been customized for journalists to tell the climate change story specific to the region. It explores the essential aspects of climate change, including its injustices to vulnerable communities, especially women and girls and least developed countries, and provides examples of best practices and stories of hope unique to the region. It can be used as a resource for journalists to understand the science of climate change, as well as helping journalists to improve their reporting of the environmental, social, economic¸ political, technological and other angles of the story.

The Handbook is part UNESCO’s International Programme for the Development of Communication’s Series on Journalism Education. The series aims to reinforce the capacities of journalists, journalism educators and their institutions to promote sustainable development, by enhancing the abilities of journalists to report on science, development and democratic governance.

The Handbook has been produced under the umbrella of a project supported by Malaysia. Its sister publication, Climate Change in Africa: A Guidebook for Journalists is also available as part of this series. With this book tailored for the Asia and Pacific, UNESCO urges journalists in the region to empower themselves so as to enhance the ability for citizens and their governments to find better local solutions in the face of the global problem of climate change.

Click here for full details and Handbook.

Identifying Pathways for More Gender-Sensitive Communication Channels in Climate Services (USAID Info Note, 2018)

Access to accurate and useful climate-related information is a prerequisite for smallholder farmers to use and benefit from climate services with respect to both agricultural and livelihood decision-making. Whether or not farmers access particular climate-related information products is determined by the types of information products that the national meteorological service and other providers make available, by access to the communication channels used to disseminate information, and by demand for the information. Gender-based factors can influence differing access to communication channels for women and men. The present brief highlights some of these key challenges to achieving socially inclusive access to weather and climate information, and presents promising pathways for developing gender-sensitive communication channels in climate services.

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Local perspectives on Climate Change, Participatory Video in Somotillo, Nicaragua (CCAFS Working Paper no.100, 2015)

Participatory Video is a methodology premised on particular attitudes and behaviors that value collective and consensual decision-making and equalized power relations, seeking local solutions to local problems, through coming together, reflecting, communicating, and taking positive action.

The PV project was conducted following the successful implementation of the Quesungual Agroforestry System in the community of La Danta in the municipality of Somotillo (department of Chinandega, Nicaragua). The objectives of this PV project were to 1. increase participants’ awareness of ways they can influence and mitigate the effects of climate change they’re subject to; 2. empower local groups to take part in a process of analysis and response that celebrates indigenous knowledge and practice; 3. generate a better understanding of gender differences as they relate to climate change adaptation and mitigation; 4. generate knowledge and information that allows future projects in the region to better understand the local context when creating inclusive climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies that have a higher potential for success.

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Climate change advocacy in the Pacific: The role of information and communication technologies (Pacific Journalism Review 23 (1) 2017 133)

This article explores the phenomenon of the use of ICT for climate change activism in the Pacific. Climate change activism in the Pacific is characterised by the use of ICT tools such as social media. The article draws on semi-structured interviews and an analysis of social media sites to examine the use of social media in Pacific climate change campaigns. While other campaigns such as relating to West Papua have also been facilitated by social media, it has been generally NGO, citizen-led and varied in Pacific government support. In contrast, climate change campaigns in the Pacific are fully supported at the NGO, citizen, and state levels. Furthermore, while early Pacific ICT-based climate change campaigns used iconic images of Pacific Islanders leaving their homelands, more recent campaigns have leveraged social media to depict Pacific Islanders not as victims but as ‘warriors’. This new imagery aims to empower Pacific Islanders and engender a regional Pacific identity that shows strength and solidarity on the Pacific’s stance towards climate change.

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Blood, Sweat and Tears: Community Redress Strategies and their Effectiveness in Mitigating the Impacts of Extractives and Related Infrastructure Projects in South Africa: 2008-2018 (Natural Justice, 2019)

“Blood, Sweat and Tears” was developed based on research conducted on communities’ responses to mining and the extractive industries in South Africa. The report tracks strategies used by communities (and their civil society partners and others) to challenge components of these developments and operations and mitigate the impacts that the communities experience – impacts that range from water contamination, erosion and dust, to displacements and disrupted livelihoods.

The research finds that although litigation was the preferred strategy in the past, communities are increasingly mobilising around other strategies, including social audits, petitions, compliance monitoring, community trainings, public campaigns etc.

Click here for full report.

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