Millions of people are on the frontlines of climate change, yet they often lack the information needed to prepare for and respond to its impacts. Traditional climate data is often inaccessible, overly technical, or not tailored to the realities of these communities. The Resilient Planet Initiative (RPI) seeks to bridge the gap in climate adaptation by providing comprehensive, accessible, and actionable climate information.
Currently, climate impact data and information on adaptation and resilience measures are siloed, fragmented, inconsistent, incomplete, and not universally accessible. This leads to redundancy in some areas while leaving gaps in others. Without a centralised and community-driven approach, many local climate resilience efforts remain disconnected from broader knowledge networks, limiting their effectiveness and scalability. RPI also addresses these gaps by leveraging digital technology to enhance resilience and support informed decision-making, ensuring that communities, particularly those in informal settlements, have access to the information they need to adapt effectively.
As part of the co-design process for the platform, the RPI partners recently conducted a three-day workshop including a field visit that provided an opportunity to test the digital platform with community members.
About the platform
At the core of RPI are three interconnected digital platforms:
The Solutions Hub
A web-based interface that serves as a knowledge repository, offering access to tested and scalable resilience solutions. The hub enables practitioners and communities to contribute, manage, and distribute evidence-based climate resilience solutions while learning from existing efforts and adapting them to local contexts.
The Exchange Hub
A mobile and web-based interface that facilitates peer-to-peer learning and collaboration. Users can interact with a bot through queries, voice inputs, or guided prompts to explore location-specific risks, recommended solutions, and funding options. The platform is designed for low-resource settings with features such as mobile responsiveness to ensure easy access with any smartphone.
The Data Hub
This component will leverage climate data to enhance decision-making, ensuring that communities have access to relevant, actionable information tailored to their needs. integrate data that helps communities access funding opportunities and connect with potential funders and donors.
Preview of the Funding Page in the Ultimate App
Bridging innovation and community: A field visit to Mukuru and Mathare
ONA, one of RPI’s partners, is responsible for developing the digital platform to support community-driven solutions. In late 2024, ONA developers conducted an initial visit to Mukuru and Mathare to engage with residents and understand their specific needs. This consultation focused on identifying the most accessible platform options, considering factors such as internet connectivity, mobile device usage, and digital literacy levels within the settlements. By gathering direct input from the communities, ONA aimed to design a system that would be both user-friendly and widely accessible.
Building on these consultations, on 12 February 2025, RPI Partners and women leaders from Uganda and Tanzania set out on a field visit to Mukuru and Mathare, two of the largest informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya. This visit provided an invaluable opportunity for the RPI team, women leaders and community members to engage firsthand with the platform in real-world settings. Communities in Mukuru and Mathare face challenges such as flooding, heat stress and air pollution from the incineration of mixed waste. Access to reliable climate information is crucial in tackling these issues and enabling residents to make informed decisions about resilience and adaptation.
The focus of the field visit was on testing the Solutions Hub and Exchange Hub, particularly the Telegram bot, to assess accessibility, usability, and relevance. Women made up the majority of participants in the training sessions, while a smaller number of men also took part, bringing diverse perspectives to the testing process providing critical feedback on its practicality in addressing local environmental challenges.
The ONA team guided community members through the process of creating accounts on the platform, uploading solutions, and navigating the system. This hands-on engagement ensured that users could effectively utilise the platform, reinforcing its relevance and ease of use in addressing local challenges. Similarly, the ONA team guided the community leaders through downloading and exploring the Telegram app. Anticipation grew when participants learned that the bot would soon support Swahili, enhancing accessibility.
Key takeaways from community engagement
Trust and collaboration are the foundation of effective digital solutions. The feedback process reinforced their importance, highlighting the value of community involvement in developing and refining these platforms. By co-designing with local actors, RPI ensures that the platform is both technically sound and practically relevant. Community members expressed enthusiasm for features such as localised climate alerts, funding opportunities, and peer-exchange forums, which provide actionable insights to support informed decision-making in their daily lives.
“This platform gives us the tools we need to respond to climate challenges in our community. It equips us with the tools to tackle climate challenges in our community. It’s easy to use, allowing us to share our own solutions. Unlike past projects that have come and gone, this one feels different because we are actively involved in shaping it.”
— Community Women Leader in Mukuru
Stay tuned for the launch
Preview home page of the ultimate app
The insights gained from this engagement will directly inform the next phase of RPI’s development, ensuring that the three hubs—Solutions, Exchange, and Data—are truly user-centered.
The field visit reaffirmed a core principle: technology should serve the people who use it. Through continued collaboration, RPI will refine and strengthen its platform, ensuring that local voices remain at the heart of climate resilience solutions.