Key facts
Full title: Climate Resilience in Diverse African Contexts: Co-Creating Knowledge∞Action networks
Short title: Climares
Project lead: Professor Thea Hilhorst
Project partners: Consortium of 17 European and African universities and institutes
Geographic regions: Democratic Republic of Congo, Morocco, Mozambique, Senegal, Uganda
Project period: September 2025 - September 2031
Key words: Climate resilience; Africa; climate action; smallholder farmers; pastoralists, outdoor workers, fisherfolks; displaced people
How can knowledge∞action (K∞A) networks strengthen the resilience strategies addressing climate-related and intersecting threats and uncertainties among African smallholders, fisherfolk, urban precarious outdoor workers, pastoralists and displaced women and men?
Climares is a consortium of 7 African universities, 7 Dutch universities and societal partners.
It works with dozens of researchers and actors in DRC, Mozambique, Morocco, Senegal and Uganda to investigate and address climate threats for at-risk populations in a range of governance and socioeconomic contexts in these countries.
Climares focuses on agricultural smallholders, fisherfolk, urban outdoor workers, pastoralists and displaced people - groups that are highly vulnerability to climate change and represent a large share of African populations.
Climares supports these populations to investigate how weather patterns and climate change will impact their – already precarious or threatened – livelihoods and solicit appropriate responses. Through participatory digital and in-person research, co-created climate storylines and advocacy methods, Climares enables weather and climate information to become meaningful and actionable.
Climares investigates climate threats for at-risk populations in a variety of climatic zones, socioeconomic contexts and institutional climate response conditions. It aims to support the agency and resilience of communities by creating and supporting Knowledge∞Action Networks (KAN). These networks are composed of all stakeholders that have an interest in the resilience of a population group, including affected communities.
Project phases
Phase 1 - 2025-2027
The first two-year phase focuses on community-based research, the formation of K∞A networks and the mapping of existing weather and climate information services and capacities.
Phase 2 - 2027-2029
In the second two-year phase, Climares will continue to work with the communities and K∞A networks and will strengthen the abilities of weather and climate actors to support communities with adequate data.
Phase 3 - 2029-2031
The final phase of Climares will be dedicated to making the K∞A networks self-reliant, refine improved weather information services and most importantly generate action to strengthen the resilience strategies of the population groups.
Outputs
Throughout Climares, a dedicated working group will ensure that relevant information from global and international platforms will be available for the K∞A networks while, vice-versa, insights from Climares will be brought to these platforms.
There will be two Climares conferences organized around global or international climate events.
Climares supports the agency and resilience of communities by creating and supporting Knowledge∞Action (K∞A) networks
Why is this project relevant?
There are many initiatives – through weather stations, satellite imaging and machine learning – to improve climate data availability in Africa. What remains a challenge is to know what the changing weather will do for at-risk populations and how early action and adaptation can effectively build on people’s resilience needs and strategies.
Climate change works through, and often multiplies, other risks that people face. This complicates early action and adaptation.
To deal with this, Climares works with specific population groups that have problems and interests in common. These are smallholders, fisherfolk, pastoralists, urban precarious construction workers and street vendors, as well as displaced populations. These groups have often formed community-based organizations to advance their interests, and will be key partners for Climares.
Long-term impacts
Climares provides support to specific at-risk populations in Africa to increase their agency and resilience to extreme weather events and other threats and uncertainties amplified by climate change.
The K∞A networks have the potential to become long-term inclusive knowledge infrastructures that support the translation of weather and climate data into need-based, actionable knowledge for different population groups. This infrastructure can assist in designing adapted futures and mobilize resources for adaptation, while also acting as conduits to bring local knowledge to the right national and international venues.
Climares will achieve broader societal impact through developing and testing the approach of capacitating K∞A Networks for specific population groups, which may serve as a model for replication in other contexts.
