Keywords: village leadership// climate change adaptation plans  // vulnerability risk assessments // Botswana // international development // leadership transformation // knowledge integration // policy-society knowledge spanning // community capacity building// transdisciplinary research

Funded by: SBERG team general budget

Key team members: OAS; MKH; HYY; BCO

Key Contributions specifically to WeValue Platform Knowledge:

This project made provided a huge jump in understanding about the usefulness of WeValue InSitu to facilitate local self-awareness, to the extent that the village leader committees involved reached a new level of understanding, commitment and capability both in their everyday role as leaders, and concerning preparations for climate change.

This was thus the first project to clearly indicate that crystallized local self-awareness was strongly related to self-motivated changes in behaviour. The village leaders also contacted our researchers afterwards, asking if we could assist them in convincing the District Committees to allow them to present their own ideas, rather than be instructed from above: this set in motion our desire to have further multi-level projects where such mobilization could be received and leveraged and nurtured effectively but the level above.

Relevant papers published: #21, #24 and #26 in the Publications List, which are so important that we also list them here:

Role clarification for local institutions: a missing link in multi-level adaptation planning? Insights from a multiple case study in Botswana

Sethamo, O. A., Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen, S. & Harder, M. K., 6 Jun 2021, In: Climate and Development. 13 p.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2021.1924109

A demonstration of how WeValue InSitu can produce role clarification in groups, enabling them to interact with ‘outsiders’ better and thus open a channel for multi-level information flow – in this case local adaptation planning. Uses control events also to demonstrate causality.

Evaluating what matters: an evaluation tool for vulnerability risk assessments in local climate change adaptation planning

Sethamo, O. A. & Harder, M. K., 25 Feb 2021, In: Journal of Environmental Planning and Management. 64, 13, p. 2346-2364 19 p.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09640568.2020.1866512

An evaluation tool for evaluating vulnerability risk assessments. Then used to demonstrate higher quality of VRAs obtained when using WeValue InSitu as a pre-process.

Understanding the role of crystallizing local shared values in fostering effective community engagement in adaptation planning in Botswana

Sethamo, O. A., Masika, R. & Harder, M. K., 31 Jul 2019, In: Climate and Development. p. 448-456

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2019.1639488

An exploratory study of the usefulness of WeValue InSitu as a pre-process to improve the interaction between a government local adaptation plan supervisor and local villagers in Botswana.

Formal Project purpose:

The first study was an exploration of whether the crystallization of shared values would have much effect/ usefulness as a pre-event before a standard Botswana government VRA (Vulnerability Risk Assessment) and workshop to get village leaders to develop a climate local adaptation plan. The results were so clear, that a second field study was planned and executed, designed to compare the outputs of this process for 4 villages against those using the standard government approach in 2 other villages. Statements were also taken from participants after the WeValue InSitu event on their reflections of it's usefulness. These studies were both published.

Later it was found that the studies above provided the basis for an evaluation system to be developed which could judge the quality of the local adaptation plans produced by villages. This became the third published paper.

(This is a brief report on this work and this page will be extended when the team has more time…)