Resurgence, a specialist in climate risk communication and resilience planning, has won the International Collaboration Project of the Year Award at the British Expertise International Awards 2020, for its work on the DARAJA project in Tanzania and Kenya. The awards recognize and celebrate UK expertise in international development, infrastructure and capacity building.
DARAJA’s goal was to improve the climate resilience of vulnerable populations living in informal settlements in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, by building the capacity of urban intermediary organizations who can interface between citizens and climate information providers. A key aim was to improve the climate resilience of 20% of poor urban residents in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, amounting to approximately 800,000 people.
To achieve this, the project carried out a comprehensive mapping of information flows through the two cities, dedicated solely to extreme weather and climate information services. With a focus on how the authorities and citizens access and convey climate information at that moment in time, over 700 household surveys across the two cities were conducted.
Other partners on the project included: the UK Met Office, Kenya Meteorological Department (KMD), Tanzania Meteorological Authority (TMA), Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI) in Nairobi and Centre for Community Initiatives (CCI) in Dar es Salaam.
The award for International Collaborative Project highlights exemplary approaches to collaboration between UK companies and/or with international partners. Resurgence impressed the judges for the team’s diversity of focus with the entry for DARAJA, an inclusive city and community localized weather forecasting and early warning service.
Emma Wade-Smith OBE, Her Majesty’s Trade Commissioner for Africa, said when presenting the award to Resurgence, “As we see the effects of climate change affecting lives and livelihoods across the world, including Africa… and as the UK prepares to host the COP26 Climate Change Conference in November 2021, our efforts have focused increasingly on how we support UK companies helping communities and countries in Africa to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change.
“We know that partnerships and collaboration are at the heart of getting this right so it’s particularly pleasing to award the prize to the company and project most effectively demonstrating international collaboration. The winner this year is Resurgence for their work in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam building an innovative city and community localized weather forecasting early warning service.”