The Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security Regional Program for Southeast Asia (CCAFS-SEA) recently concluded a collective engagement and communication program workshop at the Agricultural Genetics Institute in Hanoi, Vietnam on 29-30 May. The workshop participants drew insights from best practices of CGIAR member-centers, developed a roadmap to actively engage partners, and draw an overall communication plan to support the implementation of CCAFS research agenda and priorities. Presented by Imogen Badgery-Parker

1. CIFOR’s Climate Change Communications:
Communicating Science for Impact
Imogen Badgery-Parker, Outreach Manager

2. Goal
 Build, inform and connect a knowledge-sharing
community of stakeholders around tropical forests
and landscapes to produce impact
Objectives
 Maintain the role of forest and landscapes high on the political
agenda
 Provide impact pathways for CIFOR’s research to key
policymakers and stakeholders
 Position tropical forests and landscapes in the broader
development agenda, and global processes
 Continue to increase downloads, citations and begin to
capture evidence of impact
 Contribute to CGIAR through evidence-based communication
connected with CGIAR Research Programs (CRP-FTA, CCAFS)

3. Climate change in the communications
program
 >40% of communications activities are related to climate change
 Climate change communications are embedded in larger communications
program, with four intertwined strands:
• Digital program with global reach
• Traditional formats with repurposing of materials
• Events at various scales
• Targeted, context-specific engagement

4.  Extreme -- Science Communication,
simply inform policymakers (old model)
 Informative Advocacy
① injects scientific realities into
information that decision-makers use in
formulating policy
② gathers feedback from policymakers on
the information they need
 Extreme -- Prescriptive Advocacy uses
scientist’s position to push for a policy
action
Inform vs. Advocate

5. Existing web-based
communications platforms
• Forests and Climate Change website
• CIFOR & CGIAR Corporate website
• REDD-I
• Forest News (blog)
• CRP-FTA website
• CIFOR TV, Slideshare
• Facebook, Twitter, Google+
• Google News
• CIFOR eNewsletter

6. Forests & Climate Change:
Revamp of knowledge hub
 Move to non-branded websites
to attract more users
 Original reporting conferences
& the field; debate & analysis
builds knowledge sharing
 Launched as news site for
COP19 to build audience
(>300% increase in hits)
 Solutions-focused journalism
 Increased focus on community
building and partnerships
www.ForestsClimateChange.org
Twitter: @ForestsCC

7.  Training and support in
anticipation of FORDA taking over
site maintenance, mid 2014
 Model for other Ministries,
Cameroon, Vietnam, … .
REDD-Indonesia
www.redd-indonesia.org

8. Forests News blog
• 27% increase year-over-
year, reaching 500k pages
viewed annually
• 90 stories published
since 1 January (nearly all
translated)
• 16 scientist authored blogs
0
10,000
20,000
30,000
40,000
50,000
60,000
70,000
May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr
Monthly pageviews
2012-2013
2013-2014
27%
GLF

9. 340
440
540
640
740
840
07-Jun 27-Jun 17-Jul 06-Aug 26-Aug 15-Sep
Before the blog:
3 per day
Since then:
7 per day
During 3
days after
the blog:
35 per day
Downloads
The power of the blog
 A paper published in the journal Forests (18 Mar 11)
 A blog article about this paper on CIFOR website
(16 Aug 11)
“We find that links to scholarly articles in blogs lead to substantial jumps in the
likelihood of them being downloaded.” McKenzie, University of Chicago, 2014
“About 13 percent of policy reports were downloaded at least 250 times while more
than 31 percent of policy reports are never downloaded. Almost 87 percent of policy
reports were never cited …” Which World Bank Reports Are Widely Read?, 2014

10. Interest continues to grow
85% increase in Facebook likes
From 8,193 in April 2013 to
15,127 in April 2014
78% increase in Twitter followers
From 9,843 in April 2013 to
17,534 in April 2014
77% increase in YouTube views
From 120,033 in April 2013
to 212,375 in April 2014
680% increase in Flickr views
From 348,257 in April 2013
to 2.7 million in April 2014
60% increase in SlideShare downloads
From 3,048 in April 2013 to
4,861 in April 2014

11. Monthly News Update
• Emailed to 31,000
subscribers, plus IISD’s
Forest-L Listserve (16,000
subscibers)

12. PowerPoints posted on SlideShare
 SlideShare averaging
10,000 views per month
 Multiple languages:
English, French,
Spanish, Indonesian,
Portuguese
 Top-viewed
presentations have
5000+ views each

13. Climate change factsheets

14. Small workshops
 Haze, Fire and Landscapes Workshop, Bogor,
January
 REDD+ workshop, Ougadougou, April
Involvement in/alongside international events
 SBSTA, Bonn, June: Mangroves side event, panelist
on TEM, observer in SWG, forests & climate change
community building, JMA policy brief
 GCF, Brazil, August: Presentations, publication
launch
 UGA, NY, September: Technical workshop, CGIAR
Development Dialogues
 COP20, Lima, Dec.: Side events, MINAM
partnership
Major events
 Forests Asia Summit, Jakarta, May
Events

15. Forests Asia Summit
 Themes included “Climate change and low-emissions development on the ground”
 Keynote speeches by:
 Chair of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
 Environment Minister of Peru/COP20 President
 Other themes included climate change-related topics
 2,200 participants attended, more than 6,000 viewers watched live online, 3.45
million Twitter users reached + 4.9 million through SBY’s account
 Media partnerships with major groups in Indonesia: audience of >30 million
 Delegations from all Southeast Asian countries attended, including the President of
Indonesia and 12 government ministers
 Bilateral meetings between Ministers and Dr. Pachauri, IPCC
 VIP Lunch ‘Road to COP20’ hosted by Peru Environment Minister/COP20 President
with ASEAN Ministers
 Capacity building: Youth session, Journalist training, Social media bootcamp

16. 2014 Global Landscapes Forum
Climate
Deal
Green
EconomySDGs
Global
Landscapes
Forum
• Builds on success in Warsaw and
landscapes.org
• Timely focus on Sustainable
Development Goals, climate
change agenda (Kyoto protocol
successor), green economy
• Climate change to be a
cross-cutting theme

17. Regional
engagement
Climate Change Communications Focal Point works with
Regional Communications Coordinators and Senior Policy
Advisor for engagement with national and international policy
Latin
America
Comms
Coordinator
Africa
Comms
Coordinator
Asia
Comms
Coordinator
Climate Change Communications Focal Point
Senior
Policy
Advisor -
UNFCCC

18. Thank you
i.badgery-parker@cigar.org