By Joel Onyango, Maureen Kabasa

When people think about capacity building in Africa, the first thought is always inadequacy of expertise to enhance the capacity within the African context.

But when you think about it, Africa has all it needs in terms of capacity to train and to enhance the skills required to build a continent that will serve its growing needs. One year ago, ACTS started a trial of building capacity of African professionals using existing African expertise. At the beginning, we had to contend with the fact that we might need to get people from other places to bridge the expertise gaps.

So, our journey started by assessing what could be associated with climate action. We first conducted a demand assessment, where we talked to over two hundred professionals in climate change both informally and formally, and in our consultation, it emerged that we needed expertise especially in climate finance, climate science (including mitigation, adaptation, and resilience technology), climate policy and leadership, and climate modeling. Knowing that these were the gaps that needed to be plugged in terms of expertise, we went ahead to find out the capacity of institutions when it came to these kinds of capacity building initiatives. In this initiative, we spoke to institutions within the COMESA region. We talked to administrators, instructors, and students of climate science, and professionals and practitioners of climate action. Using all this information, we then developed modules within the expertise that existed and delivered these modules in form of hybrid trainings with virtual and in-person sessions. The trainings attracted over fifty participants mostly from the COMESA region, including 40% women, and 30% of people aged below 35years mainly from Ethiopia and Zimbabwe. This blog focuses on four lessons that we learned in the development of demand driven training courses, delivered by African expertise for African contextual solutions on climate action.

• We have the expertise; distribution is the chasm. Like in many value chains, the quantity of commodity is often not the issue, but getting it to the people who need it most! Africa has a broad range of expertise in climate action. Within the COMESA region alone, there are over 10,000 trained professionals on climate action, but the distribution is skewed in favour of countries with better climate change interventions, policies, and procedures. Kenya for instance has professionals in various climate change subjects, and advanced climate change policies, procedures, and initiatives. Other countries such as Zimbabwe, are accelerating their climate action initiatives, and need their capacity to be built rapidly; in Ethiopia, there seem to be expertise in some areas and little on others. Herein, the challenge lies: where expertise is likely to be better in Kenya, and urgently needed in Zimbabwe and some areas in Ethiopia! This implies the need for framework that allows for shared expertise, which is easily reachable, accessible, and in the right context. One of the opportunities that exists is utilizing the online tools and resources, with the capability to match the expertise gap, and training in real time, and using local case studies. The online opportunities bridge the distribution chasm and with the changing times they give a for knowledge to be shared regardless of time, space and situation
• Context is everything, it builds understanding. There is a lot of information on climate change science, technology, leadership, and models. The information is broad, and useful for a wide range of actors, and has been used to pioneer innovative global climate actions. However, the context in which the information is available, makes the utility of the information problematic. For instance, the scale in which climate data is available, and usable for climate modeling – and there forecasting, makes a lot of the information to be seen as irrelevant. There needs to be a systematic approach to contextualize information used in training, to enhance its utility by the trainees. Having case studies and examples relevant to trainees, enhances understanding among actors and professionals, and allows for the learners to take up more within their different roles in the climate change space.
• Pace is to delivery, as content is to knowledge. People learn at different speeds, and the pace chosen, is as important as the mode in which the learning material is delivered. This means that the speed at which learning material is shared with learners, need to fit within their learning environment to ensure that the learners can understand the content. A match between an optimum pace during training delivery, and the quality of the content contributes substantially to the quality of the outcome of the training, and the knowledge impacted to the learners. One of the solutions to balance this, is to co-create the content with the target learners. This ensures that the structure (and therefore the pace) of delivery is optimized, while on the other hand, allowing for the content to contribute to actual knowledge. The other way to curb this to “move with the pace of the ‘slowest’ learner” in the words of Dr Mutai Bethwel, one of instructors on climate modelling during the demand driven training. This ensures that all the learners - irrespective of how fast they learn - are on board.
• Some things cannot be taught online. The virtual learning space has come with a lot of benefits to both teachers and learners in many spheres. There have been courses developed and delivered online, where learners attributed the new knowledge to the opportunity presented by the online space. This has also substantially reduced the cost of delivering or getting enrolled into courses. However, there are some courses, especially in Africa, that still needs the in-person interaction. The in-person interactions have a way of ensuring staggered and personalized learning, even in adult education, with often instant results in the output of some trainings. Nonetheless, we need to take advantage of the advantages of both the virtual and in-person spaces, if we are to enhance capacity within the continent, through hybrid training delivery models.
• Sustainability is not an option: Whilst ensuring that knowledge systems conform to context and targeted to the climate change space, having partnerships and resource mobilization strategy at different levels is important in ensuring continuity of great initiatives. However good an idea, without material, financial and human resources, it is inadequate to contribute to action. Therefore, there is need to sustain such initiatives over time, and which requires more than money to happen. Besides money, partnerships and strategically positioning oneself/institution/nation is key to this regard.

From the foregoing, we have highlighted four learnings from delivering training on climate change. While the learnings may not be exhaustive, they provide a guiding niche towards innovating climate change education in Africa. The lessons have been instrumental in unveiling the Africa Centre for Technology Studies Virtual Academy, which will focus on demand driven training, with mixed delivery strategies, contextual examples and co-developed asynchronous and synchronous trainings on Climate Change Resilience; Gender and Inclusive Development; Science Technology and Innovation; Agricultural, Food and Nutrition Security; and the Digital economy.