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Communications Strategy

Mission Statement

“The CGIAR Climate Security Research Area aims to conduct research on natural resource management, agriculture and food systems to build resilience in climate-sensitive regions that are prone to or emerging out of conflict. We aim to provide actionable scientific recommendations to organizations in order to design more holistic peacebuilding operations.”

Research Agenda

The long-term goals of CGIAR Climate Security are:

  • To Understand the contribution of CGIAR to the prospects to peace.
  • To develop a database and tools for information sharing between researchers and partners alike, while aligning incentives for a common goal.
  • To highlight the impact pathways between climate change and conflict through scientific research and data analysis.
  • To showcase the impact and contribution of CGIAR to the mitigation of these impact pathways.
  • To understand and communicate the intricacies of natural resource management, agriculture and food systems in relation to climate and conflict.
  • Use scientific understandings and relationships with organizations to help build resilience in areas vulnerable to climate induced conflict.

Each material of communication should be consistent with our message.

Our communications should encompass the values of CGIAR while promoting information sharing around Climate Security for the common good. Our communications will focus on four main aspects: A Climate Security website, a series of Climate Security webinars, blogs posts and social media.

Objectives for website:                                                                      Launch Date: 30/04/2020

The CGIAR Climate Security website will operate as the epicentre of the Climate Security research area and serve as the face of our brand. The website is critical to the communications and branding of Climate security and will act as a springboard to share knowledge, generate support and raise awareness of our cause. The site should welcome visitors with clear and concise usability while presenting vital information and data for scholars and researchers alike. It will present and aim to educate our audience on our mission statement, provide a space for knowledge sharing and host events and blogs orchestrated by Climate Security and its partners. The website will be designed with the following guidelines in mind:

Landing Page – The home page of the CGIAR Climate Security website will give users a background on the objectives and goals of CGIAR Climate Security. It should educate users of the need for intellectual discourse concerning climate, security and the intense and complex pathways which connect them. The page should showcase issues which CGIAR hopes to address and how we plan to address them – through research and education, knowledge sharing, the development of information data bases, strengthening of partnerships and institutional reform towards processes for peace by aligning common objectives and incentives.

Contributions to Peace – Here users will encounter the extensive portfolio analysis of research papers which identify drivers of conflict both directly and indirectly through a searchable database on CGIAR’s contribution to peace. An interactive visualization of driver interactions will be showcased to give users an opportunity to explore the complex interactions and feedback loops which drive climate induced conflict. Users will have the freedom to search different drivers of conflict with results showing visitors the consequences of said driver in regions of the world. The page will also serve as a platform to an extensive information database of all reviewed literature which contributed to the findings and implementation of the interactive Climate Security explorer.

News and Events – The news and events section of the website should be used to update users on the progress and initiatives being undertaken by CGIAR and partners in the process for peace. News will be published intermittently in the form of blogs which are discussed below in more detail. All events orchestrated by CGIAR Climate Security will be announced via this page, formerly users will find details of the six webinars from the Climate Security Webinar Series.

Objectives for webinars:                                                                    Launch Date: 04/06/2020

The Climate Security Webinar series will aim to provide an immersive knowledge sharing experience for guests. We hope to broadcast the webinars to an expansive audience while conveying the key messages of Climate Security though hosted panel discussions between subject experts. They will incorporate topics which focus on issues related to and effected by climate security with an emphasis on the impact pathways between climate change and conflict. The webinars will help to solidify the importance of climate security and the role of CGIAR within it, through the re-enforcement of knowledge and data sharing through expert discussions.

Webinar 1: The role of climate and food systems science in conflict prevention and peacebuilding.

Webinar 2:The importance of data and disruptive technologies for climate security.

Webinar 3:Sustainable finance for peace.

Webinar 4:Climate security in the Sahel.

Webinar 5: Climate security in post-conflict Colombia.

Webinar 6:  A partnership agenda for Climate Security.

All webinars will be hosted on Whova and streamed live on YouTube. Whova is an event management application used to organize events with a modern interface. Whova can be used to market the event while managing logistics for the event organizer. It specializes in user engagement and attendee networking by encouraging users to interact via polls, questionnaires and chat rooms (What Is Whova? | Whova FAQ, 2020).

The webinars will be hosted by Mark Goldberg. Mark is the creator and broadcaster of the UN Global Dispatch podcast which has approximately 5000 active weekly listeners. The webinar will be produced and distributed as podcasts by Mark and the UN Global Dispatch.

Objectives for blogs:                                                                                       Launch Date: TBA

Individual blogs will focus on specific case studies which are relevant to the field of Climate Security. Focused on regions and situations that may benefit from climate security initiatives and projects established by CGIAR and partner organisations to reduce conflict vulnerability. Although each blog post will focus on its own topic the core message should be consistent and focus on highlighting the impact pathways between climate and conflict while underlining the impact and contribution of CGIAR and its partners to the mitigation of said pathways.

Partner Organizations: These blog posts should incorporate updates on specific initiatives which focus on our work with partnering organizations and the parallel between our missions. Highlighting projects which aspire to achieve security in vulnerable areas through the adaptation of systems and processes. Projects and organizations with common end goals to the Climate Security research area are suitable here. This will help to strengthen partner relations and build relationships.

Country Profiles – The second subset of blog posts will focus on independent country profiles. Each country should be given background information focusing on specific vulnerabilities relating to climate and conflict in that region. An in-depth investigation of the different impact pathways specific to that country, and finally, the ways in which the work of CGIAR and partners is addressing these impact pathways, including the benefits, programs and projects in the area.

Social media channels:

As a new facet of CGIAR, Climate Security will not create its own social media channels. It will instead make use of the social media channels already in operation by CGIAR and its research programs. We have been granted access to the accounts of CGIAR, CCAFS and CIAT for Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. These accounts have a combined total following of 413,300. The decision to not create our own social media channels stems from research that shows social media accounts take an extensive amount of time and recourses to establish and build a loyal following. It is paramount to avoid creating a social media ‘ghost town’ which can actually have a negative impact on your brand or organization (Sweeney and Craig, 2011).

We will develop a series of social media toolkits for Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. These toolkits will comprise of a series of posts for each social media site, accompanying media (video/image) for each post and a suggested date of posting. These will be sent to our partners at CGIAR, CCAFS and CIAT for redistribution through their highly established social media channels.