Research

The Portfolio Analysis for CGIAR ‘Climate Security’ Website

The Aim:

As part of a group of four to build a portfolio review for the Climate Security project, the aim of the process was to categories CGIAR contributions to peace by reviewing literature, coding and entering data to be able to use the data to map and categories CGIAR contributions. The priority was to make information available in the most clear and easy way, i.e. the content and layout should not overwhelm the audience. Graphs should be easy to read and understand, especially for a non-scientific audience.

The Process:

At the end of April, I took part in a week long training and testing week with Zulia, who is also on the CCAFS masters course, which was over seen by two of CIAT Climate Security members. During that week we did data entry training on the process base of the protocol, as well as several testing rounds to ensure we understood the process and identify and address issues or missing points in the procedure, data frames and codes, as well as to make sure that codes, categories and terminologies are understood by all and used in a consistent way. The testing week also was beneficial in helping practicing entries to build a faster pace to be able to increase the number of entries achieved in a day / week.  Once we started entries into the master data file, we did weekly cross-checks, where each individual checks another member’s entries for errors, this is was to help identify any issues or misunderstandings and improve the consistency of data entry among collaborators.

The End Result:

“Our portfolio analysis identified research, directly and indirectly, contributing to the prospects of peace. We first reviewed general literature on climate-related conflicts to establish a set of drivers relevant within the climate security nexus. We then conducted a keyword search on climate security-related drivers on different CGIAR platforms and repositories, to identify and extract key drivers and conflicts and from research items contributing to climate security in different ways.”

From drop down menus you can filters the results by choosing drivers of conflict and/or regions and/or countries to only show you the literature and research sources you are interested in viewing on a given topic. It provides a direct link to the original source that you can use to then visit and download the original source.

From the picture above you can see an example of search results for conflict literature that related to Deforestation → South America → Colombia

Source and Link to website https://climatesecurity.cgiar.org/