Africa is on the frontline of climate change, facing growing risks that erode livelihoods, especially for the most vulnerable. Although climate resilience strategies have been proposed and implementation efforts initiated, uptake has often been slow, hindered by approaches that are top-down, technical, and detached from the communities they aim to serve.

Climate resilience in Africa cannot be built solely on information; it must be built on connection. While the continent has become a frontline witness to the devastating effects of climate change, from failing crops to flooded coastlines, most responses remain top-down, technical, and detached from the people they are meant to serve. According to the report by UNESCO & UNFCCC, scientific research exists in large numbers, yet the communities facing the brunt of the crisis often have the least access to it, and even less influence over how it is used.

The Role of Participation in Climate Resilience

For too long, science communication has flowed one way, from experts to the public, North to South. But as climate impacts intensify, that model is no longer enough. True resilience demands participatory approaches that center equity, lived experience, and local wisdom. Africa's climate story is not just about emissions or adaptation technologies; it is about voice, representation, and narrative power. How we talk about climate change determines who is heard, who is funded, and who is left behind

Transformative science communication must go beyond simplifying research; it must challenge knowledge hierarchies, create space for lived experience and local wisdom, and enable meaningful public participation. Just as importantly, it must build sustainable, scalable platforms that carry these voices into the future. This is why we must rethink science communication as a foundational climate infrastructure, a system that connects knowledge, people, and action.

Science Communication as Climate Infrastructure

Despite decades of climate research, the translation of knowledge into actionable change remains weak. Reports are written, policies drafted, but meaningful public engagement is often missing. This has led to a disconnect between what is recommended and what is practiced. This communication gap is particularly stark in frontline communities, from smallholder farmers facing shifting rainfall patterns to coastal fishers navigating rising tides.

Science communication, when strategically deployed, can:

If science communication is the infrastructure for climate justice, then how it is designed, from who shapes it to how it is shared, becomes critical. This is where co-creation comes in.

Co-Creation over Dissemination

Traditional science communication models often treat audiences as passive recipients. This one-way flow, from researcher to "end user," fails to capture the lived realities of those at the frontline of climate impacts. In contrast, co-created communication values local knowledge, cultural context, and community priorities.

Participatory communication models have gained attention across the Global South, especially in climate-vulnerable regions where institutional trust is low. In such spaces, building communication infrastructure that centers on co-creation can be transformative. Whether through citizen-led climate monitoring or collaborative storytelling, giving communities the platforms to produce and share their knowledge enhances both legitimacy and impact.

Co-creation is not just a method; it is a shift in how we understand science itself. This requires reframing the role of knowledge in climate action.

Reframing Science as a Collective Conversation

Climate science cannot be neutral. In a region already dealing with inequality, exclusion, and environmental degradation, the way knowledge is framed matters in Africa. Communication must address the power dynamics in whose knowledge counts, whose voices are prioritized, and how decisions are made.

This calls for:

Having reframed science as a collective conversation, the next step is to embed these principles into action.

The Path Forward

While transformative science communication has often been seen as ending with the publication of findings, it begins where people, policy, and practice intersect. Climate resilience will not be achieved through better data alone, but through better dialogue: dialogue that is inclusive, critical, and empowering.

Africa's climate future hinges not just on the science it produces, but on how that science is communicated, challenged, and inclusively shared. If communication remains extractive or exclusive, even the strongest research may fail to connect. But when rooted in equity, trust, and participation, communication becomes a tool for justice and a force for accommodating and adapting to change.

The future of climate resilience in Africa depends not just on science, but on how we share it. When communication becomes participatory, just, and rooted in lived experience, it becomes the true backbone of climate justice.