In the last few years, global media coverage of climate change has been increasing. One important area where climate change poses major challenges is agriculture. In Africa, agriculture provides employment to about two-thirds of the continent’s working population.

Extreme weather events, such as floods, drought and wildfires, are affecting people’s lives and the environment, including agriculture production, and it is important that people are well-informed about these events and their short- and long-term impacts.

VIrtual training program

This four-part training series for media representatives aims to:

Build networks. Create networks of climate change and agriculture media representatives across the continent. These individuals are to serve a leadership role in training and informing citizen audiences.

Raise awareness. Enhance the knowledge, understanding and reporting capacity on crucial agriculture and climate change issues and Africa’s standpoint on global climate change negotiations. Provide science-based insights on climate change and long-term planning in readily accessible formats to reach target audiences, with an emphasis on questions and answers.

Guide story development. Train participants on how to develop stories that are simple, powerful and accurate, and which resonate with the lives of their audiences. Carry out practical sessions to draft articles, blogs, tweets and radio presentations to raise awareness on climate change actions in agriculture and the value of long-term planning for target audiences. Develop a step-by-step toolkit and approach to building linked articles and a thematic series using a variety of media platforms.

Training resources

Session 1: climate change and foresight for the media

• Recording

• Slides

Session 2: Unpacking systems and tools for the media

• Recording 
• Guest speaker talk: Godfred Boafo talking about presenting climate change to different audiences
• Slides

Session 3: Evidence and making an impact

• Recording 
• Guest speaker talk: Patricia Gichinga sharing successes about Shamba Shape Up
• Slides

Session 4: Application and case studies

• Recording 
• Guest speaker talk: Ammaarah Martinus talking about behaviourally-informed programmes
• Slides

The training series is organized by the Centre for Coordination of Agricultural Research and Development for Southern Africa (CCARDESA) in collaboration with the World Bank funded Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) project. The training series is also supported by the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme ex Pillar 4 (CAADP-XP4) programme funded by the European Union (EU) and administered by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).