African communities face diverse climate threats and uncertainties, affecting small farmers, fisherfolk, urban outdoor workers, pastoralists and displaced people. What are their specific weather-information needs? How does climate change impact these groups, and how can communities, stakeholders and resource providers collaborate to mobilize for early adaptation?
The new project Climate Resilience in Diverse African Contexts: Co-Creating Knowledge∞Action Networks (Climares) aims to address these questions. The project will be based at ISS and embedded within The Hague Humanitarian Studies Centre. Climares investigates the climate risks facing vulnerable populations across different climates, governance frameworks and socioeconomic conditions in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Morocco, Mozambique, Senegal and Uganda. The project is funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) through the Research on Routes by Consortia (ORC) programme under the Dutch Research Agenda (NWA).
About Climares
Instruments like weather stations and satellite imaging are improving climate data availability in Africa, yet translating this data into meaningful information for at-risk communities remains a challenge. Understanding how changing and often unpredictable weather events impact livelihoods is crucial for preparing these communities for climate change. With early action and adaptation, local resilience can be strengthened.
However, climate change complicates existing risks, making effective responses more challenging. Climares targets specific groups—smallholders, fisherfolk, urban outdoor workers, pastoralists, and displaced people—to collaboratively understand and address these risks. Using participatory digital and face-to-face research methods, co-created climate storylines, and advocacy efforts, Climares strives to make weather and climate data both accurate and actionable.
Building Knowledge∞Action Networks
Climares is also establishing Knowledge∞Action (K∞A) networks, which connect vulnerable groups with weather, climate and disaster experts, as well as other key stakeholders. This inclusive knowledge network aims to foster climate resilience for vulnerable populations worldwide. By implementing 11 K∞A networks, Climares will analyze factors that either facilitate or hinder these collaborations, creating a model that can be adapted for climate resilience efforts in other regions.
How Climares will operate
The Climares consortium is composed of seven research institutions from the Netherlands, including the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University Rotterdam, and seven from Africa, with the support of various non-academic partners. Leading the project at ISS are Professor Thea Hilhorst, Dr Sonja Fransen, Dr Rodrigo Mena and Dr Sylvia Bergh. Climares will recruit 11 PhD candidates across the case-study countries, focusing on applied, impact-oriented research.
- Deltares
- IHE Delft Institute for Water Education
- KNMI (Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute)
- Leiden University
- Maastricht University
- The Hague University of Applied Sciences
- University of Amsterdam
- University of Twente
- Upinion
- Wageningen University & Research
- Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre
- Cadi Ayyad University (Morocco)
- Cheikh Anta Diop University (Senegal)
- CREDETIP (Senegal)
- Eduardo Mondlane University (Mozambique)
- Institut Agronomique et Vétérinaire Hassan II (Morocco)
- ISDR Bukavu (Democratic Republic of Congo)
- Makerere University (Uganda)
- The University of Cape Town
The insights and models developed through Climares will not only enhance climate resilience for vulnerable communities across Africa but also provide a scalable framework for global climate adaptation efforts—ensuring that the people most affected by climate change are empowered to shape their own sustainable futures.
- Professor
- Researcher
- Assistant professor
- Associate professor
