| dc.description.abstract | Climate change is increasingly becoming a great hindrance to socio-economic development
and wellbeing of Cameroon. This is in particular the case of Yaoundé in the centre region where
climate extremes such as torrential rainfall and increasing temperatures causing flooding,
landslides, mudslides, heat waves and seasonal variations have become a nightmare. The
mitigation and adaptation to this climate change impacts requires effective knowledge transfer
in order to optimize action and policies within the region. The first priority objective of
Cameroon’s National Adaptation Plan sets out to improve knowledge on climate change and
the second priority being; informing, educating and mobilizing the Cameroonian communities
on Adaptation strategies. This justifies the reason for which this research with focus in the
centre region was carried out. The aim of this research was to assess the effectiveness of climate
change knowledge transfer for adaptation and mitigation action and policy in Cameroon. The
specific objectives of this research included to evaluate the current state of climate change
knowledge transfer frameworks, identify involved actors and their power relations, Identify
key challenges hindering efficient knowledge transfer, identifying dissemination canals and the
extent of knowledge outreach. A mixed-method approach that combined qualitative and
quantitative data collection methods was used. A review of existing literature work and policy
documents was done, interviews with 9 key informants from some key climate change
knowledge management establishments, 182 questionnaires administered to households from
sample localities (Mbankolo(42), Nkolbisson(38), Etoug Ebe(38), Awae Village(32) and
Ntui(32), surveys and focus group discussion. The SPSS software was used to analyse
quantitative data collected from the field while ALAS.ti software was used to analyse
qualitative data using the thematic approach. Country policies were examined to assess their
alignment with effective climate change knowledge transfer using the policy analysis approach
by Carl (2016). Results revealed that there exist already established climate change knowledge
transfer frameworks including mainly ONACC and DMN. However only 36.8% of respondent
knew of any existing Climate change Knowledge transfer frameworks while 63.2 % did not.
Out of respondents who knew a framework, 40(59.7%) identified ONACC, 12(17.9%)
identified DMN. The frameworks still function at the national level having their helm at the
capital of the country without any or with limited local correspondence. The type of climate
change knowledge produced include seasonal calendars, GHG inventories, bulletins,
agricultural calendars, and climate change vulnerability and impact studies. The main effective
channels of knowledge transfer were through Media TV and Radio 93(51.1%) and social media
54(29.67%). Main challenges to effective climate change knowledge transfer included, lack of
resources (37.9%), language (25.8%), low government and community engagement (19.25%),
complexity of information (15.4%) and conflict of interest. The outreach was limited to policy
makers, education institutions, NGOs and civil societies while local communities were left out.
Enhancing effective knowledge transfer in the centre region requires coordinated management
of the country’s climate action, awareness and sensitization, definition of roles, provision of
necessary financial, infrastructural, technical and human resources needed to implement the
dissemination process. | en_US |
