Purpose

The aim of national workshops during the course of the programme is to inform staff and/or volunteers about the potential risks of climate change in country and how these risks might affect the National Society’s mission and programmes. To include National Society staff from different programmes is an important aspect of this component and it will help to better integrate climate risks as a cross cutting subject into the work of the whole national society.

Output

An internal workshop in the National Society on climate change (possibly integrated with another key event or thematic workshop).

Practical information

This component is intended to be an easy way to continue with the first phase of the programme via having an initial discussion among key staff at your national headquarters about this new topic, as an “appetizer” for the rest of the programme. After the initial workshop, the participants should have an impression of the potential implications of climate change. Besides inviting the right staff and delegates, it is important to find one or two good experts in country to present comprehensible information about climate change and disaster risk reduction (it may need to be emphasised to these experts that the audience may be new to climate change). However, the format is flexible; you could for example decide on one initial or two smaller workshops (one at the beginning and one at some point during implementation). National Societies in PfCC1 suggested that an "initiation to climate change" workshop would have been enhanced by a second one at a later date to present conclusions of the background document. This would present an opportunity to involve more people in the development of appropriate actions to address the problems highlighted and continue to improve knowledge of national impacts.

How to organize the workshop?

In some cases, the workshop will be organized as a separate stand-alone event, typically lasting between half a day and a full day. Hence, the following guidance is for such a stand-alone workshop. In some cases, however, it might be more effective to combine the workshop as a component of another key event already planned, for instance a big disaster management training for national headquarters staff, or an annual planning meeting (you will still need to ensure that participants are from across programmatic areas of the National Society). In that case, you would organize a session covering more or less the same topics as discussed below.

The workshop could consist of the following two components:

1. An introduction on the science on climate change, current trends (eg. Is it getting hotter, drier, and wetter?) and the expected national impacts of climate change in to the future. It is important to set it in the context of the existing climate that the country experiences. For example how will existing climate risks change? Will there be new risks? This is just a general introduction, and could be presented by one or two climate change experts in country. In many cases, either a national meteorological office or the national government’s climate change focal point (often found in the Environment Ministry) might be able to provide such experts. Please always ask to receive the presentation of experts in advance and make sure their story uses simple language and not too many difficult graphs. You have to make sure they have a presentation which is easily to understood by people without a climate background!

You will find 4 short videos with a brief presentation on climate change and the risks it poses for Red Cross and Red Crescent societies around the world on the Climate Centre’s website (available in both Spanish and English), but is important to complement these with national experts who can tell the story about local impacts, relevant to the work of your National Society. Also available online is a Powerpoint presentation that gives an overview of RC/RC and climate change.

2. A group discussion about the impact of climate change and extreme weather events in relation to the ongoing disaster management, health & care, and/or water & sanitation programmes within your national society. This session should involve all participants and could be led by a senior official of the national society (such as head of disaster management division or equivalent).

The discussion could address questions in groups such as:

• Are we already seeing funny weather (eg. changes in seasons, weather extremes, health, agriculture)?
• Are the new risks affecting the groups of people the Red Cross/Red Crescent works with the most vulnerable in particular?
• Are the new risks affecting our work (in disaster management, health & care and/or water & sanitation)? 

Participants of the workshop

1. One or two climate change experts in your country (these can be found by contacting the Government’s Climate Change Focal Point within the Ministry of the Environment in your country or check out suggestions in the 'stakeholder analysis (pdf, 132 kB)')
2. The Secretary General of the National Society;
3. Heads of the disaster management, health & care, water & sanitation, organizational development, youth & volunteer coordinators, training and communication divisions within the national society;
4. Key staff of the disaster management, health & care, water & sanitation, organizational development, training and communication divisions within the national society;
5. You could consider inviting volunteers or holding a separate sensitisation workshop for volunteers as a good opportunity to consider messages on climate change and how to communicate them
6. If present in your country: key delegates of the IFRC and/or other (participating) national societies working in your country. Some National Societies have also invited health ministry and national disaster management office representatives to the workshop. Some have found it generated a useful discussion however other NS feel that they know too little about climate change in the beginning. National Societies might find it more useful to invite broader partners at a later workshop to share findings when the National Society's focal points feel more confident with the subject and the National Society is more familiar with it.

In case you would like to have some guidance in your approach to different stakeholders, please click here (pdf, 181 kB)for a set of questions you could ask them. Click here (pdf, 64 kB) for the Spanish version.

Reporting 
 
The National Society: A brief report (1-3 pages), with:

1. The main conclusions from the workshop (eg. List the main climate related impacts in the country, what changes are people talking about);
2. Key questions or concerns that were raised at the workshop, if any;
3. Agreed next steps;
4. A discussion of any difficulties that arose in preparation of the workshop, if any;
5. Workshop invitation letter (optional);
6. Workshop agenda;
7. List of presenters, participants, and the person(s) who organized the workshop, including their position (in the national society).

Experiences from other countries

Templates for Part 1

Reporting template Part 1 (pdf, 95 kB)

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