February 2007

'Coping with Climate Change' is the theme of this edition of ICT Update, a bimonthly publication focusing on the use of information and communication technologies in agriculture in developing countries. According to this issue, because of predictions that developing countries will suffer far more from the impacts of global warming than Europe and North America, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and researchers are engaged in practical strategies of mitigating and adapting in local communities. This ICT Update looks at a few of such pioneering activities in African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) countries.

In its central article, researchers in American Samoa employ geographic information system (GIS), satellite imagery and tide gauges to track the landward retreat of mangrove forests in response to rising sea levels. They are trying to predict shoreline responses to sea level rise for land use planning, fortifying the shorelines, or identifying evacuation needs.

An article by Telecoms Sans Frontières, a France-based NGO that provides emergency telecommunications services, describes implementing satellite communications systems in Niger, in order to reduce the time it takes to pass on information, such as advance notice of weather conditions, which help governments make decisions that enable them to avert or minimise the food security crises that these circumstances can produce. In sites formerly lacking communications connectivity, the organisation's system is currently providing central governments with data on the situation in the cereal and livestock markets, variations in stock of subsistence crops, modifications in the population’s diet, the development of sanitary and nutritional situations, variations in natural resources, and the dynamics of commercial trade, as well as information on the local health situation, based on information collected by government workers from health centres.

Another article offers a briefing on a high frequency radio system by which Jamaica Amateur Radio Emergency Corps (JAREC), amateur radio operators in Jamaica, serve their communities in extreme weather events across the Caribbean. They specialise in hurricane monitoring and emergency communications services to the Red Cross, the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM), and the Salvation Army. They have augmented service with the internet, using it to link distant radio sites via voice over internet protocol (VOIP), as part of the Internet Relay Linking Project (IRLP), coordinated by the Caribbean Amateur Radio Meteorological Emergency Network (Carmen), which runs five weather stations for gathering and posting information.

An editorial by Ochiengo Ogodo asserts that in Africa few journalists or editors grasp the implications of climate change; yet, farmers in communities and civil society organisations across the ACP need to have climate change information. Further, he notes that the debate has focused on North-generated protocols like carbon sequestration projects in the developing world, while South-located organisations need more information for the debate in order to have more voice. Thus, he observes, there is a vital role for media, which needs cooperation of editors, scientists, and professional journalism networks to bring the issues to civil society.

English, French.

Emails from Leigh Philips and Rutger Engelhard to the Communication Initiative on March 8 2007 and August 6 2007, respectively.