
As part of the South-South Collaboration on Climate Information Services (SSCIS) Project, UPLB-INREM participated in a focused group discussion (FGD) on the production of climate information services (CIS) knowledge products (KP) from January 13 to 14, 2025, at the Luxent Hotel, in Quezon City, Manila.
Aileen Simondac-Peria, Marielle Baliwag, and Ma. Louiella Rose Catudio, project staff of UPLB-INREM SSCIS, participated in the FGD.
Various Community of Practice (CoP) in CIS for agriculture and fisheries members from academe and national government agencies (NGAs) attended the FGD.
Before the FGD, Richard Antonio, GIZ Information and Knowledge Management adviser presented the findings of the initial FGD on CIS knowledge products conducted with farmers from Mindanao.
Insights from the farmers were the guiding principles in evaluating various knowledge products produced by state universities and colleges (SUCs) and NGAs.
Shayne Bustos, GIZ consultant, facilitated the FGD by discussing the current capacities and needs of the CoP members in the production, translation, and dissemination of CIS.
Aaron Almadro, a GIZ consultant, discussed multimedia, recognized as a powerful Information, Education, and Communication (IEC) tool. The session commenced with an exploration of the target market, emphasizing the importance of creating a persona for CIS KPs.
Conventional and new media were compared and presented to enhance understanding of IEC dissemination processes. The session concluded with an assessment of existing KPs from academe and NGAs.
On the second day, Almadro elaborated on the principles of designs for CIS KPs for various sectors. Johanna Marie Camasura of GIZ provided an overview of the basics of short video production, specifically TikTok videos.
The concern about short attention spans identified the TikTok videos as one of the effective IEC dissemination tools for CIS from the farmers’ perspectives. At the end of the session, each sector prepared a TikTok video on CIS.
To cap the two-day workshop, Jimmy Loro, SSCIS chief advisor, emphasized the importance of effectively packaging and disseminating CIS through multimedia. He noted the need to create content that captures the target audience’s attention and communicates CIS effectively.
Before engaging with CoP members, insights from Mindanao farmers were collected during an FGD session held on November 13-14, 2024, at Microtel in General Santos City. The key results of these sessions were shared with the January 2025 FGD participants. (Ma. Louiella Rose Catudio, Marielle Baliwag, Aileen Simondac-Peria)