[FDMT] Stakeholder engagement to develop applications for flood and drought planning [Experience Note]
The Flood and Drought Management Tools (FDMT) project provides a decision support system (DSS) in the form of online tools accessed through a portal for transboundary basin organisations and water utilities to better cope with climate variability and the effects of climate change, especially floods and droughts. The Flood and Drought Portal (www.flooddroughtmonitor.com) offers a series of technical applications and a methodology to support existing planning approaches such as transboundary diagnostic analysis (TDA), strategic action programmes (SAP), integrated water resource management (IWRM), and waster safety planning (WSP). DSSs often suffer from low uptake in practice, as the intended users may not be included in their inception, design and later stages. The FDMT project has employed a user-centered approach in designing, training and awareness-raising activities. The project has worked alongside pilot basin stakeholders from Volta, Lake Victoria and Chao Phraya basins and has sought input from a diverse range of stakeholders in the regions at every development stage. A combination of engagement strategies have been used including: Face-to-face individual meetings and group meetings; skype follow-up calls; face-to-face trainings and workshops; participatory opportunity mapping for extending engagement and promotion in the region, etc. Developing a targeted engagement strategy with tailored messaging and activating local champions to promote the tools and support resources to a wider audience is key to overcoming the difficulties of stakeholder buy-in; language barriers and future sustainability.
4533: Flood and Drought Management Tools
[FDMT] Stakeholder engagement to develop applications for flood and drought planning [Experience Note].pdf
