ANALYSIS OF THE ROLE OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES (ICTs) IN CLIMATE CHANGE AWARENESS IN SEKE AND MUREWA DISTRICTS OF ZIMBABWE Shakespear Mudombi SARChI-IERI Research Workshop, 12 th November 2011 IERI, Pretoria, South Africa Supervisors: Prof M Muchie and Dr S Letsaolo DTEC: AGRICULTURE

Introduction For meaningful adaptation to and mitigation of climate change, – Information and knowledge - essential If rural households, communities have access to information, – it will enhance their awareness; adaptation and mitigation capacity How do we enhance climate change awareness? There are various ways in which technologies both old and new can help in reducing the negative effects of climate change.

Introduction.. ICTs can play an important role as a medium of information and communication in climate change awareness; adaptation and mitigation strategies. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) – is used to refer to hardware, software, networks and media for collection, storage, processing, transmission and presentation of information in the formats of voice, data, text and images (World Bank (n.d.) ; Nyirenda-Jere, 2010).

ICTs application categories in the Environmental & Climate sector Source: ITU (2008)

Literature review No concrete literature on the link between ICTs and climate change – New field of enquiry 3 distinctive strands of research on the links between ICTs and climate change. – Global perspective research that addresses broad issues concerning ICTs, sustainable development and the environment from. – Developed countries' priorities the emergence of more topic-specific and technical research covering aspects of climate change mitigation – Developing countries needs and priorities Research emerging evidence on the use of ICT applications in vulnerable contexts and adaptation strategies of developing countries (Ospina and Heeks, 2010)

Questions, objectives & hypothesis RESEARCH QUESTIONS Are rural people aware of climate change? If so how much of this awareness do they attribute to ICTs? What is the relationship between access to ICTs and climate change awareness? How does climate change awareness influence the rural households ability to adapt to climate change? What are other sources of information regarding climate change that are available to rural people? RESEARCH OBJECTIVES The main objective of the study is to analyse the contribution of ICTs in climate change awareness in rural Zimbabwe. Specific objectives: To determine the level of awareness of rural people to climate change. To analyse the availability of and access to ICTs by rural people. To analyse the contribution of ICTs in informing rural people about climate change. To investigate the linkage between climate change awareness and the ability of the household to adapt to climate change. RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS There are significant differences in access to ICTs between rural people in the two districts. There is a positive relationship between access to ICTs and awareness of climate change amongst rural households. There is a significant association between rural people perceptions of ICTs/ its content and the reception of such information.

Conceptual Framework: Climate change information and communication processes in the livelihoods framework Source: Adapted from Duncombe (2006) who adapted it the information chain by Heeks (1999) Duncombe (2006) - ICT applications for poverty reduction via micro-enterprise in Botswana. Sife, Kiondo, & Lyimo-Macha (2010) - The contribution of mobile phones to rural livelihoods in Morogoro region of Tanzania.

Research Methods- Study area Zimbabwe has: 10 provinces people Mashonaland East province total population people. total number of households districts 2 districts were selected purposively (Seke and Murewa) Mash East Province

Research Methods... A multi-stage sampling approach was used. The data collection was conducted from May to August The sample size – 150 respondents were selected from each of the two districts. Several steps were taken to ensure/ improve reliability and validity of the instruments, these include: – validating the instrument (other experts in the field will be consulted to evaluate consistency of the instrument with the desired outcome); – piloting the instruments with a small representative group of the population – training of research assistants in data collection and entry – data cleansing (checking entered data for errors)

Reliability & Validity of instruments Data handling and analytical packages – SPSS and STATA. Various analytical tools were used, – descriptive statistics; correlation analysis; and regression analysis. Gender disaggregated sample female-headed- 32.1% male-headed- 67.9% MurewaSeke Average age (years) Average household size

Preliminary results Aware of climate change ICTKnow %Own % MurewaSekeTotalMurewaSekeTotal Radio Television Satellite decoder Video Cassette Recorder Digital Video Disc player Fixed Telephone Mobile phone Computer Internet connection ICT knowledge & Ownership SekeMurewaCombinedT-test results Aware of climate change (Yes) 78.5%94%86.3%0.0000*** Climate change awareness index ***

Correlation & Regression results Correlation AnalysisLogistic regression VariableCoefficient2-tailed sig. levelOdds RatioSig. level Radio ownership *** *** Television ownership *** Satellite decoder ownership Video Cassette Recorder ownership ** Digital Video Disc player ownership Mobile phone ownership *** ** Computer ownership Internet connection Newspapers Farming/environmental magazines ** ** Business magazines Entertainment magazines church magazines Posters

Project GANTT chart

Thank you Contact Institute for Economic Research on Innovation Tshwane University of Technology 159 Skinner Street, Pretoria, South Africa Supervisors: Prof M Muchie and Dr S Letsaolo