By Albert Nkwasa, Maria Theresa Nakkazi and Ann van Griensven

Workshop Overview:

Spanning two days, the workshop featured numerous sessions wherein participants exchanged experiences about stakeholder engagement. These shared insights covered the strategies utilized for stakeholder involvement, the challenges encountered, and the outcomes achieved.

Day 1:

The workshop commenced with several attendees presenting their experiences with stakeholder engagements on climate risk assessments, particularly in the Global South. Examples included initiatives in Africa (Morocco, Uganda, Mali, Chad), Asia (Bangladesh), and stakeholder engagements under strict policy conditions like in South America (Katari river basin). Subsequently, there was a crash course on climate impact attribution by Luke Grant. Here, the attendees gained an understanding of the core concepts of detection and attribution of climate impacts. This set the stage for defining our perspective paper's aim, titled, “Framework for Involving Stakeholders in Climate Impact Attribution Assessments”. The rationale behind this endeavor was also discussed. Attendees were grouped into five teams to brainstorm and deliberate on the paper's structure and each member's contribution. The day concluded with a consensus on the paper's structure and an acknowledgment of the need to specify the target audience.

Day 2:

The second day began with more participants sharing their stakeholder involvement experiences from projects like ISIpedia, ForestNavigator, and LAMACLIMA. This was followed by group submissions on the paper, with various online contributions and edits made across sections. Later in the day, WG4's Task Group leaders presented their findings on the stakeholder survey/database within PROCLIAS. They introduced an Excel template detailing how to add stakeholders to the database. Additionally, they proposed generating a report from the initial stakeholder mapping. One of the participants also shared his paper idea that would focus on how stakeholders in PROCLIAS and beyond can understand climate impact attribution. Lastly, the workshop ended with concluding remarks and next steps for the community paper for which a concrete draft is expected by March 2024.

Our deepest appreciation goes to all speakers and attendees for their invaluable contributions.

Without the support from the COST Action CA19139 PROCLIAS, this workshop would not have realized its full potential. We look forward to the follow-up activities in the coming weeks.