Malawi Red Cross Presentation by Ethel Kaimila

Climate change is expected to make things worse. Background Malawi is one of the poorest countries in world, threatened by extreme climate risks Climate change is expected to make things worse. The communication and use of weather and climate predictions is a crucial challenge for adaptation, particularly among illiterate farmers and other vulnerable community members.

Droughts Context Climate risks Cyclones and flooding El Niño and Droughts Climate change

Malawi Meteorological Services Red Cross Climate change center Partners Malawi Meteorological Services Red Cross Climate change center Malawi Red Cross Society Malawi Institute of Management International Institute of Applied Sciences (IIASA) Cheap & easy technology Malawi: go to villages w/ message. All you need is [equip] 4

Purpose and objectives Use of audio-visual tools to strengthen the capacity of small holder farmers in salima district to adapt to droughts and floods Objectives To accelerate and enhance training/learning in risk communication, to drought adaptation strategies by smallholder farmers To learn from the communities on how they view and understand climate change and climate change adaptation and build on these understandings

Activities Stakeholder meetings Community sensitization Community assessments KAP study, vulnerability capacity assessment (VCA) and other social learning methods Review and application of climate change scenarios Procurement of audio visual tools Trainings Production of audio visual tools Participatory workshops Monitoring and evaluation Documentation of the process

participatory workshops using audio visual tools Learning and sharing with the community on impact of floods/droughts, what happens during these disasters, what are the causes and how to predict the disasters and plan on how to do certain things differently

Expected progress: Community involvement and participation in collecting information for developing audio-visual tools and other materials store process Disseminate: Cheap & easy technology Malawi: go to villages w/ message. All you need is [equip] 8

Concerns and challenges Designing and communicating weather forecasts to illiterate farmers Difficult to convince donors to fund adaptation programs. It requires long term funding

Lessons learnt Its not easy to mobilize funding for adaptation programs