Many thanks dear colleagues for your insightful contributions. Agree. In my turn I’d like also to add to these with the followings.
CONCERNING THE QUESTION 1 (the major challenge with the CI you receive from the Meteorology Services?).
We have investigated communities during diverse initiatives we get involved (rural or urban). From the surveys and informal discussions and listening, it appeared that “trusting” the reliability of the warning become one of the major issues. I recently carried out a study for one of the Resilience programme in Burkina Faso in 4 communities, community members said -when they are asked how often they use CI a week – “one of our problems about climate information is that sometimes what we hear is not what happens and then we are not sometimes confident”. From the analysis it seems, apart from the accuracy issues (due to uncertainties in forecasting), the main issue is the channel of transmission, as sometimes the information did not get the local people on time or the lack of updating about the changing of meteorological phenomena. One of the underlying causes of the “inaccuracy” of the forecasting is that the data used to perform the forecast are sometimes come from the weather and meteorological station that are far from the target communities. This calls for enhancing the data collection network. Therefore the DATA COLLECTION NETWORK, the WEAKNESS OF THE COMMUNICATION CHANNEL, and the RELIABILITY as well can be seen as some of the major challenges in CIS for producers, brokers and users. In fact Even if predictions are accurate, if warnings do not reach users (on time), or users do not act on warnings, early warming becomes ineffective.
In one of the initiatives in the Sanguié province in Burkina Faso, it has been proven that where CI is accurate and accompanied by services, farmers are willing to integrate CIS in their daily practices.
AS TO Q2 (SHARING MECHANISM OR PLATFORM)
It is already proven, for example in Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, and Ghana that, that communities get access to numerous communication channels cited above (in the question). From the experiences, 3 of the main routes might be radio, SMS, a social media (newly) and in person briefing. However the effectiveness of each route or mechanism are related to the target area and the capacity of the people.
The COMMUNITY RADIO is particularly useful in rural as the message can get the large people at the same time in local language. It is more relevance as in Africa, the electricity is a major challenge and radio can still be listened using batteries. In addition, message come from radio is more considered by the local communities. Recently, radio listening programme (including listening post) particularly in rural communities is becoming a way to explore as they provide opportunities for listeners and providers to interact. Somme resources can be found here http://www.cifor.org/publications/pdf_files/WPapers/WP173CIFOR.pdf; https://publications.farmradio.org/
SMS is useful in cities. At the village level SMS message should be reinforced by voice in local language, as illiteracy is widespread.
Web-based : singularly the SOCIAL MEDIA like WhatsApp ad Facebook are becoming 2 of the powerful tool to get information in (on) time, in urban area.
PERSON BRIEFING. This is particularly useful in rural area.
Others. In rural areas, in addition to the radio and sms, FAMILY, COMMUNITY MEMBERS AND PUBLIC PLACES can be a useful way to share CIS. However a focal point should be a key
