The Coastal Community Resilience to Climate and Diarrhoea (C2R-CD) held a two-day (4 – 5th February) workshop on Transdisciplinary Research (TDR). The TDR workshop was intended to explore the concept of Transdisciplinary Research, methods and approaches and its application to C2R-CD research through the work packages with the view of ensuring effective stakeholder engagement processes for effective and increased uptake of findings into policy and practice.
The event featured presentations and working sessions focused on the choice and integration of suitable TDR methodology into work package and project-wide activities. The five (5) work packages of the C2R-CD project are as follows:
| Work Packages (WP) | Main Objective |
| WP 1: Climate Related & Biophysical Studies | Generate climate related biophysical information |
| WP 2: Public Health & Transmission Pathways | Assess the epidemiological, environmental drivers and transmission pathways issues of the project |
| WP 3: Community & Institutional Dynamics | Explore the socio-cultural and economic factors and community level institutional arrangements in disaster risk management and diarrhoea prevention and management |
| WP 4: Integrated Assessment & Scenario Building | Collate data generated from WPs 1-3 and model scenarios to inform disease management |
| WP 5: Community Involvement, Mobilization & Education for Impact | Integrate community participation into the research process and implementation of innovative strategies that will be informed by the various WPs |
The work packages presented summaries of their discussions in plenary, the Work Package 5; Community Involvement, Mobilisation and Education for Impact, for instance highlighted the following among its activities in promoting increased engagement for effective research uptake and practice including:
- Setting up a Community Governance Committee to serve as points of contact in the study communities. The Committee is to comprise of influential members such as assemblymen, opinion leaders, community leaders, leaders of Community-based Organisations (CBOs) etc.
- Putting together clear plan/dashboard of deliverables to guide the activities of each of the work packages in line with the desired impact pathway
- Documentation of all the TDR process and the generation of outputs from all the relevant activities. The outputs would variously be useful for knowledge systems on TDR and for community-level and multi-stakeholder engagements.
- Stakeholder mapping together and an Impact Pathway development to guide and streamline project activities towards targeted and effective engagement
The Workshop which was partly physical and virtual was attended by project partners including the research team (academia/research), implementing partners and representatives from Municipal assemblies and communities of study areas.
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The Coastal Community Resilience to Climate and Diarrhoea (C2R-CD) Project aims at building resilience to climate change and improving diarrhoeal management in coastal communities. It is a transdisciplinary research with local and international partnerships made up of the Academia (University of Ghana, IESS leading with other units, Aarhus University, Denmark), Civil Society Group (Peoples Dialogue on Human Settlements) and Government Agencies (the Ghana Environmental Protection Agency, Municipal assemblies of study communities).