ICCS6- February 11-13, 2020 | Pune, India In many countries, a myriad of agroclimatic information products has emerged (such as periodic bulletins and apps). These products cover a spectrum of needs and quality levels, and often overlap and reuse information from each other, forming a complex information "ecosystem." To assess the contribution of each product and the remaining gaps in information provision, as well as the usability of the individual products, an assessment approach is needed that has been lacking so far. Here we report on the development of a systematic and user-centered approach to assess climate information products and their networks; and their application to product sets covering the nexus of climate, agriculture, and food security in Guatemala and Colombia. Across both countries, we assessed 28 products used for agricultural decision making, outreach, planning research, and design of emergency responses. While climate-only information products play a central role in each network, other products intended to support agriculture and food security need to integrate information from different themes or disciplines and sources at different scales. We find that major improvements in the credibility, legitimacy, scale, cognition, procedures, recommendations, and content of most existing products are required. Our experience suggests that the approach proposed here will be especially useful for strengthening internal self-assessment processes, oriented towards learning from experience and reflecting on the lessons learned. Aspects of our approach that contribute towards satisfying these conditions include the iterative nature of the process, the participation of stakeholders throughout the study, the production of comparable data across different contexts and its novelty. Ultimately, the approach we propose is valuable for facilitating the prioritization of actions for improvement and/or the development of new products, thereby helping climate services for agriculture and food security to realize their true potential.

1. A systematic approach to assess climate information
products applied to agriculture and food security:
Guatemala and Colombia
ICCS6- FEBRUARY 11-13, 2020 | PUNE, INDIA
Diana C. Giraldo (UoR & CIAT)
d.c.giraldo@pgr.reading.ac.uk
Claudia Bouroncle, Anna Muller, Diana
Giraldo, David Rios, Pablo Imbach et al.,
(2019)
1

2. Climate services in Latin America (LAM)
Mapping of
actors and
agro-climatic
information
needs and
flows
Evaluation
climate
information
products
Local
Technical
Agroclimatic
Committees
(MTAs)
Participatory
Integrated
Climate
Services for
Agriculture
(PICSA)
http://bit.ly/3aKABnrhttp://bit.ly/38GXy9j
2
Demand Supply U-P Interface Decision-making
Tomorrow’s presentation!

3. Background
In Latin America, climate information products
for agricultural and food security range from
seasonal bulletins produced in the Regional
Climate Outlook Forums (RCOFs) to locally-
relevant bulletins, websites and mobile phone
applications.
Although the need for evaluation of the
usability of information products is recognized
(e.g., McNie, 2012, Moss, 2016), less
emphasis has been placed on understanding
the roles of different information products as
part of an ‘information ecosystem’ and on
evaluating their usability systematically
(Vaughan and Dessai, 2014).
3
Whether and how information
products are used as sources of
information for decision-making?

4. 4
Step 2. Relationships between products
Step 3. Products user-centered assessment
• Are the products well known?
• For what purpose are the
products used?
• What is their perceived usability?
• What are the key aspects of an
ideal product?
Products knowledge
(Likert scale)
Semi-structured
interviews
SUS index analysis
Key decisions matrix
Summary of characteristics to
overcome use constraints
• Is there a thematic integration
in the network?
• How the information flows
between products? Migration and network analyses
Hierarchical clustering
Desktop
analysis
• How can the products improve
their usability and role
in the network?
Step 4. Generation and communication of recommendations
Recommendations for each
publishing organisation
Socialization of results
Discussion
meetings
• What is the geographic scope?
• What is the thematic scope?
• Products search and selection
Delimitation of the area of interest
Step 1. Inventory of products
List of information products
Food
security
Crop
management
Other
themes
Discussion
meetings
Internet
searches
Methods
We define information product as a publication that is periodically
made available to a potential target group of users to support
their decision-making.
Interface: Text mining, Cluster,
Migration, network analysis, and
markdown.

5. 5
Table 1. Information products assessed for Guatemala and Colombia. The code includes the country
abbreviation, the product scale (L – local, N – national, R – regional) and the acronym of the
product name. Main theme: CL – climate, CR – crops, AC – agroclimatic, FS – food security;
frequency: D – daily, M – monthly, S – seasonal; type: M – monitoring, F – forecasting.
Fig. 4. Colombia circular migration plot, showing the flow
of information between products. The direction of the
flow of information is indicated by the arrow, pointing to
the source product. A color is assigned to each
information product and the colors of the arrows group
information flows from the same source product (i.e.
citations of that product).

6. 6
Central
government
Municipality
government
International
cooperation
Research and
teaching
Private
agricultural
organizations
Total
Guatemala
Main
administration 4 0 10 3 – 17
Dry Corridor 9 7 4 3 – 23
Total 13 7 14 6 – 40
Colombia
Main
administration 9 – 3 3 4 19
Córdoba and
Santander 3 2 – 4 7 16
Total 12 2 3 7 11 35
Numbers of interviewees that contributed to the assessment of information products presented
here, according to institution type and location.
Each node represents an information product, an arrow represents a
confirmed relationship between two products: the source and the
destination. The shape of the node corresponds to the main theme of
the product; the color indicates the type of publishing organization,
and the size is proportional to the number of direct relationships it has
with other nodes. The position of each node in the network is related
to its function in information exchange: The closer a node is to the
center of the diagram, the more important it is as a provider of
information; while the closer it is to other nodes, the more easily can it
exchange information with them. The diagram also identifies
‘intermediary’ products that have a role in transferring information

7. 7
Table 3. Desirable characterisOcs of informaOon products to overcome constraints (PaQ and Gwata, 2002) that
limit its usability according to respondents interviewed in Guatemala and Colombia.
Blog: http://bit.ly/2uunrux
Finally, the conclusions of the study are delivered to product suppliers in the form of recommendations for potential
improvements both to individual products and the roles of as part of an information network
Constraints Characteristics
Credibility - Trusted sources and sources comparison
- Monitoring and forecasting methodologies and assumptions; forecasting uncertainty level
Legitimacy - Local feedback
Scale - Information at municipal scale
Cognitive
capacity
- Plain language.
- Logical structure with key messages
- Integration of climatic, agronomic and food security variables in the analysis
Procedures - Timely distribution for planning and decision-making
- Links to original data and downloadable maps
- Appropriate delivery mechanisms
Choices - Practical recommendations based on explicit assumptions or scenarios
- Agroclimatic calendars for planning
- List of current and planned organizational responses
Other contents - Climate: relative humidity observations, ENSO situation, and forecast, mid-summer drought
forecast, hurricane season forecast, dry spells monitoring
- Agriculture: e.g. water requirements for crops, pest and disease warnings
- Food security: e.g. access to drinkable water, food reserves

8. 8
Our approach can be applied to explore the relevance of the CS and identify
thematic and functional gaps, which could be addressed by collaborating with other
organizations.
Our approach does not provide information on efficiency in the use of resources, the
impact of products, and not consider the sustainability of measures that could be
taken to improve the CS.
Efficiency: To automate and simplify as many steps as possible, e.g., online or
interactive-voice-response surveys. To automate the analysis in R interface,
covering several countries and scales.
The Co-production assessment, using standard principles such as those proposed
by Vincent et al. (2018) or Bremer et al. (2019).
Strengths:
Limitations:
To make the approach operational
Future research:

9. Thank you!
9
Web page: https://ccafs.cgiar.org/es/agroclimas# |
https://research.reading.ac.uk/picsa/
Twitter: @danagirando | Linkedin: dianacgiraldociat
Bouroncle, C., Müller, A., Giraldo, D., Rios, D., Imbach, P., Girón, E., Portillo, F., Boni,
A., van Etten, J., Ramirez-Villegas, J., 2019. A systematic approach to assess climate
information products applied to agriculture and food security in Guatemala and
Colombia. Clim. Serv. 16, 100137. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cliser.2019.100137