A new policy brief explores what role local farmers’ knowledge can play in national climate change adaption policy, and how each can learn from the other?  As delegates meet at the 17th Conference of the Parties on climate change in Durban, the brief explores the opportunities and barriers to this process through examples from Kenya and Namibia.

In both countries, parts of the government are engaging well with local knowledge, but there is still resistance in other parts, where formal systems and official knowledge are more highly prized.

Looking at these issues in the context of longer-term changes in the climate, and the movement of large numbers of people into cities, raises more questions. Although recommending farming as a livelihood works in the short- to medium-term, in the long term it may be better to consider diversification into “climate insensitive” livelihoods. And although mass movements of people into cities may seem a promising response to rural decline, these people often face poverty and vulnerability to climate change in their new home.

Farmers’ Knowledge and Climate Change Adaptation: Insights from Policy Processes in Kenya & Namibia (pdf)