1. Role-playing games to assess climate change adaptation and food security strategies in Mali, West Africa
Udita Sanga

2. Project Background
IBSS project aimed towards studying the complex food security dynamics in Mali through participatory ensemble modelling approach (using mental models, system dynamics models, structural equation modelling and agent based models)
ASSAR (Adaptation at Scale in Semi-Arid Regions) project, aimed towards understanding climate change trends, impacts, vulnerabilities, and adaptation strategies, as well as identifying important barriers to and enablers of effective adaptation in the West African drylands.
Grant support : ASSAR’s Small opportunities grant

3. Study location in Mali, West Africa
44 respondents in six villages in Koutiala
Narratives from elder men and women , younger men and women
Aim of narratives:
•Components of individual cognition and perceptions of agriculture, climate change and food security.
•Individual and household-level decision making in terms of adaptation to climate risks and food insecurity
Mali

4. Mental models of food security in Mali
Graphical representation of how household members differentially understand, perceive, make decisions, and behave with respect to food production, utilization and consumption and the impacts of and adaptation to climate change in their farming activities.
Used to examine how individuals construct behavior and make decisions in a complex environment
Encapsulate key physical states and mental processes
More than images: a good MM should enable to predict system states by mental manipulation of model parameters
Theoretical base - cognitive psychology

5. Decision structure of household food security and adaptation
Fewer decision nodes on
Food stability &
Food access
Men (elder & young) mostly decide on strategies for food availability, stability and food access
Women (elder and young) mostly decide on strategies for food utilization as well as availability
Decisions on various adaptation strategies is mostly taken by men (elder and young)
Conflicts between strategies taken by elder and younger men

6. Innovations and future steps
Insights into inter and intra household food security
Dives into the cultural and social changes and challenges in households due to food insecurity
Decision structure format of the metal model set a platform for system dynamics, agent based and structural equation modelling
Quantification of intra-household food dynamics
Survey questions
Role playing board games
translation of the mental models into quantifiable agent based and system dynamics models such that future simulations can be generated

7. Role playing games: Hunger games
4 Players : Members of a household who, depending on their roles and responsibilities, will represent key decision makers namely elder man, elder woman, young man and young woman
Game board will be constructed with movable square grid cells which replicate the type and size of plots managed by the respective player
Each game round will simulate one crop production season.
Starting capital in the form of plastic coins to represent initial financial capital to buy seeds, inputs etc.
Random Event cards represent intensity and types of climate risk
Grain cups represent initial resource capital and production levels.
Image source: D’aquino and Bah,2013

8. Round 1: ‘business as usual’ where there is no rainfall variability with normal crop yield.
Step 1: Players make decisions on the crops to grow based on their initial capital and trade their coins to purchase seeds, inputs, fertilizers etc.
Step 2: Players can ask other players to trade coins as labor costs if another player agrees to help them in labor in preparing the field, weeding and harvesting.
Step 3: Crop yield at the end of every round (season) represented by cups filled with grains;
Players decide on grain allocation for household consumption and for selling in the market.
Player representing elder man allocates grain amount to be allocated to the household members across the season (collective plot).
The grains can be exchanged in the market for coins for individual players and /or additional grains/supplement food items can be bought from the market in exchange of coins by any of the individual players.

9. Subsequent rounds
Round 2 will be played with the leftover capital from round 1.
Random event card will determine crop yields for that particular round and may lead to a food deficit or surplus for the household.
In subsequent rounds, the players will be given the liberty to come up with strategies that allow them to adapt to the variability in climatic events, and exchange their resources (in terms of plots, types of crops, capital, investments etc.).

10. Advantage of role playing games
Quantification of the perceived costs and benefits of these adaptation strategies
Tease out nuances in the preferences in these strategies and perceptions on the efficacy of the strategies.
Understand the barriers that households face in effective adaptation to climate variability.
Empirically assess and measure these decision rules by putting decision makers (in this case, farmers) close to real situations.
Develop empirically based Agent based models that are based on decision rules obtained from the games

11. Thank you! Questions?