Interventions by government and development partners targeting rural farmers for climate change adaptation measures must deploy “Indigenous communication approaches” such as community gathering for information sharing, storytelling, elder teaching, and dance etc.
Long practices have seen development partners engage communication consultants who consider communication as a one-sided approach where information is disseminated through radio jingles, TV programmes, and social media. These approaches do not resonate with cultural practices and realities in rural communities, resulting in a failed communication strategy.
My research findings, “An Examination of Indigenous Communication Approaches for Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Among Rural Farmers”, reveal that a top-down approach where communication consultants design climate change communication relying on mass and social media when targeting rural farmers regarding climate change education and adaptation is largely ineffective.
They are largely ineffective because the approaches disregard the people’s trusted indigenous languages and Indigenous knowledge systems of sharing messages, which result in action and response.
If government and development partners are sincerely concerned about building climate resilience among rural farmers at the grassroots, they must design communication strategies in a way that information will be communicated to the locals through Indigenous channels that foster better understanding, active participation, which will build trust and ownership.
By Audu Liberty Oseni, Director, MAWA-Foundation; Development Communication Specialist