April 2012: The UN Development Programme (UNDP) has released January-April 2012 issue of The Baobab Coalition Journal, a publication that reports on the community activities and efforts carried out under the Africa Adaptation Programme (AAP). The issue features articles on training of climate journalists, a climate data management workshop, AAP activities in Morocco, and recent publications available on the programme.

As part of the Media and Capacity Building Project under the APP, journalist from the 20 AAP focus countries participated in a Training of Trainers climate-journalism workshop held in Nairobi, Kenya, from 16-20 January 2012. The workshop aimed to help journalists enhance the role that African media can play in investigating, interpreting and reporting on climate change and development issues with the objective to better inform both public debate and policymaking.

The Journal reports on the climate data management workshop for 12 meteorologists and IT experts from four AAP countries held in Trieste, Italy. Participants from Burkina Faso, Congo, Lesotho and Mozambique learned how to install, operate and maintain high performance computing (HPC) data servers, so that they can gain access to climate data and information that can be analyzed, managed and shared for application in research activities, policy discussion and decision making purposes. The workshop contributed to achieveing AAP’s goals of facilitating access to available data and information on climate variability to support national planning and decision making.

The Journal also provides an overview of AAP activities in Morocco, including the use of knowledge to assess vulnerability of the country’s agricultural productive oasis and to develop alternative plans to facilitate their protection.

Finally, the Journal highlights the release of a series of brochures on the AAP areas of work, in English and French, including: ‘From Risk to Resilience’, which provides an overview of the programme; ‘People and Change’, which explains the work of the Institutions and Leadership component; ‘Supporting Decision Making’, which covers the data and information management component; ‘Capitalizing on the Power of Knowledge’, which covers the knowledge management component; and ‘Informing the Public’, which details the Media Capacity Building Project.

The Baobab Coalition Journal, a community newspaper for the AAP activities, aims to connect participants, share knowledge, report progress, examine challenges, showcase successes and build mutual reliance among AAP countries and across Africa. [Publication: The Baobab Coalition Journal, January-April 2012, UNDP, Africa Adaptation Programme]