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Adapting to a Changing Environment

WORLD VISION UGANDA

KAMPALA, 乌干达

An Overview Of Our Solution

Who is this solution impacting?
生态系统
Grasslands
Grasslands
社区类型
Rural
Rural
Additional Information
  • Population Impacted:
  • Continent: Africa
General Info

地址

P.O. Box 5319
KAMPALA
乌干达

电子邮件

Margaret_Barihaihi@wvi.org
Problem

受影响的人口

Community population for Kitgum District; (167,030 (51.3% females and 48.7% men) as per the 2002 Uganda Population census

尺寸

4,042 sq. km

主要职业

subsistence rain?fed agriculture and animal keeping is the main source of income for over 80% of the district?s population. Most farmers are small-holders. Cotton and Tobacco are the major traditional cash crops

社区所依赖的本地资源,以及用于什么目的

others are sim-sim and sunflower.

对资源的本地威胁

Land for farming and grazing is the number 1 asset. Other basic assets include fuel wood and water for household survival. The collection and sale of wood, wild foods and grasses for thatch provide income.

气候危害

Soil and environment degradation; deforestation practices; climate variability, hazards and change; armed conflict; high poverty levels; pollution of water and air

敏感度等级

The capacity of individuals to respond to climate variability and climate change remains generally low. Livelihoods are particularly sensitive to fluctuations in seasonal rainfall. Given the socio-economic characteristics of the district (especially dependence on rain fed subsistence agriculture, high population growth, high poverty levels, high illiteracy levels and the previous wars and civil strife) vulnerability to environmental stresses and climate impacts is very high.

适应能力水平

1. Droughts and dry spells are leading to crop failures and low agricultural production. This often results into food insecurity, famine, hunger and malnutrition. This is because rain ?fed subsistence farming is the main source of livelihood. 2. Droughts have contributed to water stress with drying of water sources and people have to move long distances to get clean and safe water 3. The drought conditions have made people to encroach on wetlands for cultivation. This has led to degradation of wetlands which in turn worsens flooding 4. Floods have caused damage to infrastructure like roads and bridges due to floods. This makes transport and marketing difficult. During heavy rains the roads become impassable, children fail to attend school, and water sources become contaminated more often than before as the community shares them with animals 5. There is reported increase in crop pests and diseases which also affects crop and animal production. High incidence of disease out breaks e.g. malaria, cholera and Hepatitis E & B. This is attributed to the increasing temperatures which has favoured breeding of various disease vectors. 6. Wood fuel scarcity. This has resulted in people moving long distances to collect firewood. Shortage of wood fuel makes people eat half cooked food and drink water that is not boiled which negatively affects their health affects the health. With the wood fuel scarcity, people now cut fruit trees for firewood and charcoal production.
Solution

The innovation is ?translating the weather forecast into local languages and timely dissemination?. The weather forecast is interpreted into simple advisory messages per sector, translated into local languages and disseminated to rural communities for facilitating their decision making processes related to farming, heath, education, disasters and ecosystem management. The long term goal of this initiative is to: increase the usage of weather and climate information in decisions making processes by end users through informed early warning for climate change adaptation, risk reduction and mitigation in Uganda Specific Objectives i) To strengthen the capacity and coordination at national level in interpreting the weather and climate information implications per sector ii) To strengthen the capacity of district level , farmers, communities and local institutions to interpret and understand the implications of the weather and climate on their livelihoods to allow them make informed decisions iii) To support coordination and participation of stakeholders to create awareness on importance of climate prediction products and information to guide adaptation, risk reduction and mitigation activities How did the innovation start? Uganda like most developing countries relies on regional (Greater Horn of Africa forecast) down scaled weather information. Uganda Department of Meteorology (UMD), Ministry of Water and Environment is the only government department / institution that is mandated by Government of Uganda for establishing and maintaining weather and climate observing stations, collection, analysis, and production of weather and climate information to support social and economic development of the country In 2010, ACCRA conducted a community based research on adaptive capacity to climate change in Uganda in three representative districts (Bundibugyo, Kotido, and Gulu) using ACCRA adaptive capacity Framework. The study revealed that community in rural areas such as the farmers, fishers, livestock herders and business have not benefited from the seasonal weather forecasts provided by the National Meteorology Department. Those who get the weather forecasts sometimes receive them late after the season has started, so it does not help and communities resort to traditional and historical means of predicting weather changes, which is also proving unreliable in the face of changing climate. The local community leaders expressed that the weather forecast terminologies were also complicated, which could not be interpreted into meaningful advisories for farmers. Communities demanded for accessible and easily interpretable weather information to make informed decisions and responses for their futures. In 2012 ACCRA extended to Kitgum district community, the same finding ( poor access to useful weather forecast) was confirmed, in two separate studies ; the district capacity gap analysis study ( 2012) and the community assessment on the impact of weather forecast in decision making processes (2012). Include information on how the most vulnerable stakeholder groups in the community were included in the decision making process Based on these studies and recommendations from the communities, the initiative for interpreting and translation of weather forecast into local languages was started in 2012 June. Communities suggested a combination of local dissemination channels which are being used to ensure that all categories can access the weather forecast. For example women preferred dissemination through community meetings, and churches since they have limited access to radios which are owned by men whose interests may not necessarily be weather information. ? Include partners/organizations who were involved in supporting the solution and their roles. The Uganda Meteorology Department is the leading implementation agency in collaboration with various stakeholders including experts from agriculture, water, climate change, energy, disaster management, health, etc) , media, research, non government organizations and academia experts

Results

生态成本

The communities who could not access information through radios have used the avenue of community groups to share weather forecast information. The groups engage in village savings and loan associations which are very helpful during times of disaster. Pla

社区/社会福利

- Volunteer time for disseminating the information by community based organisations - Conflict between community and traditional forecasters with meteorologists in case the forecast does not happen as predicted. - Time needed for community members to adapt to the changes and fear of losing their traditional farming practices and crop varieties

用于衡量福利的社区/社会指标

- More community members accessing the weather forecast information - Integration of traditional knowledge into scientific information for harmony - -Emergence of innovations in terms of farming, local irrigation, crop varieties etc

经济成本

- Increased number of organisations disseminating the weather forecast - - Increased awareness and support for adaptation activities Increased accuracy of the weather forecast information

经济效益

Funds for paying for the radio programmes and dissemination activities - meeting costs - costs on improved variety

用于衡量效益的生态指标

- improved food security - Men pass on the weather forecast information though sometimes distorted - improved income

您的社区在实施此解决方案时面临哪些挑战?

sources of food - sources of income

Action

描述用于开发解决方案的基于社区的流程,包括使用的工具和流程

Tthe capacity of individuals to respond to climate variability and climate change remains generally low. Due to the impacts of war, the asset base of the community is poor and poverty levels are very high. The community is now depending on natural resources for survival which is degrading the ecosystem further. In terms of knowledge and information, the community has not been accessing climate and weather information to aid their planning and decision making, until this innovation started, which has tried to share seasonal forecasts. The other challenge for adaptation was on institutions and entitlements, the capacity gap analysis conducted revealed that the District lacked information and skills to address climate change issues. Even the non government organisations working in the area were doing development work that was not focusing on adaptation, though a few were indirectly or directly working on activities that protect the ecosystem but with no focus on building the adaptive capacity of the community. The projects done and the mode of information is short term and does not promote flexible and forward looking decision making which also limits adaptive capacity of the community. All the above, coupled with lack of innovation in regard to addressing climate change vulnerabilities leaves communities helpless even when they have institutions, some assets and establishes structures for information dissemination and planning.

关注的气候危害

The process starts at national level, with a national workshop where Meteorology Department invites national experts from other ministries ( Agriculture, water, climate change, energy, disaster management, health, etc) , media, research and academia exper

您的解决方案如何减少暴露和缓冲/保护受影响的生态系统?

Changing temperatures and weather patterns

How has your solution increased the capacity of the ecosystem to adapt to potential climate changes?

The soil management systems have reduced soil erosion and improved productivity as well as maintaining micro organisms important for soil nutrition. Reduced bush burning reduces the destruction of biodiversity in the grasslands and also improves soil fertility.

您的解决方案如何减少受影响社区的暴露并缓冲/保护受影响的社区?

The emerging activities like tree planting, soil and water management with communities that receive timely weather forecast, have already demonstrated less negative impacts during dry spells, the farmers are able to maintain their expected crop harvests. Also during heavy rains, the floods exhibit less damages, thus improving the capacity of the ecosystem

您的解决方案如何降低受影响社区的敏感性?

Already addressed

您的解决方案如何提高当地社区适应潜在气候变化的能力?

Communities have testified better disaster preparedness because the advisories help them to prepare and reduce the impact. One testimony was about digging trenches around gardens to avoid washing away of crops during heavy rains, moving children to safe places as rain intensifies and many others. Increased income from farming activities than when they were not receiving information. The weather forecast information helps them make decisions on when to plant early, harvest early, and decide on the type of crops to grow. This has helped improve crop yield thus increasing their income Food security has also improved, because of having the information before, some sections of the community testified that they have strated growing new crops like sweet potatoes which mature quickly and yet in the past they never used do well but due to weather changes, they can now plant them.

Scale

这个解决方案可以在其他地方复制吗?

The challenges encountered include; ? low dissemination rate ? so far only 4 districts are being reached out of 112 districts in Uganda, ? Undeveloped user feedback systems, - the end users have not yet provided regular feedback ? Language coverage still low, so far 7 languages are covered yet Uganda has about 52 local dialects ? Field assessments on the weather forecast are on small scale ? currently finance Measures taken to improve dissemination of weather forecast; ? Meteorology has expanded on the dissemination channels by using strategic government institutions and CSOs with wide constituencies e.g ULGA,( ULGA has contacts of all CAOS, Chairpersons LC5 and RDCs in all Districts) MAAIF, NAADS secretariat (Zonal coordinators, District coordinators and service providers network ) and networks like Climate Action Network-U (CAN-U) who can in turn share with lower structures to boost information flow. ? Meteorology Department has planned to establish a workable two- way feedback system to all users ? Other Development Partners have been asked at different national platforms to support and disseminate weather information to reach the public ? Meteorology Department has planned to integrate of field community assessments to capture impacts of weather forecast dissemination - in the existing early warning assessments i.e food security assessments, disaster mapping ? ACCRA Consortium + Meteorology field assessment tool for weather forecast impact has been recommended to be adopted as a national tool and that should be reviewed by a larger team and integrated in government and development monitoring tools ? Meteorology Department is slowly soliciting extra funding to support the initiative for example to increase on the languages and dissemination channels including mobile phones.

Overview
Solution
Scale
Rare
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