Climate Knowledge Brokers Workshop

This report details the third annual Climate Knowledge Brokers (CKB) workshop held in June 2013 in Bonn, Germany. The event focused on forging collaborative links between online knowledge brokers specializing in climate and development, sharing lessons on user engagement and internet marketing, and developing shared technical tools to improve information discoverability.

• The CKB Group has developed two primary shared tools to improve the accessibility of climate information: the reegle Tagging API, which automates the extraction of key terms and geographical locations from documents to harmonize tagging, and the Knowledge Navigator, a widget that directs users to the most relevant web platforms based on their interests and geography.
• Seven collaborative projects supported by CDKN have been implemented, including the InfoAmazonia Geojournalism Project, which uses satellite imagery and research data to report on the Amazon basin and attracted over 21,000 visitors in nine months, and Valorando Naturaleza, a platform for reporting on ecosystem markets in Latin America with 8,600 visitors in its first three months.
• Knowledge brokers identified several systemic mistakes in their approach, specifically the 'portal proliferation' syndrome where funders prefer new websites over improving existing ones, and a tendency toward 'one way communication' that fails to attract active users to generate their own content.
• The workshop emphasized the necessity of 'user personas' to avoid unjustified assumptions about target audiences. Examples include 'Somsak', a city planner in South East Asia needing topline messages, and 'Michael', a West African policy advisor with poor wi-fi access who prefers hard copy publications.
• Participants highlighted the effectiveness of 'User Labs' for obtaining granular feedback that analytics tools cannot provide, as demonstrated by NREL's testing with 30 stakeholders and UNISDR's 800-participant survey.
• The CKB Group's impact study indicates that while the group has enhanced awareness and relationships between brokers and helped avoid duplication, there is a lack of systematic evidence that it has led to improved long-term actions or easier information retrieval for end users.
• Future options for the CKB Group were debated, ranging from 'Status Quo MINUS' (no external funding) to a 'Big Programme' requiring several million US dollars per year. While the 'Big Programme' was the most appealing to participants, 'Status Quo' was voted as the most realistic short-term option.
• The workshop provided a set of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) guidelines, recommending that page titles be kept under 60 characters, URLs be 'clean' (without query strings), and that content be shared via Wikipedia references rather than direct articles to avoid removal by editors.

APA

Climate and Development Knowledge Network (2013). Climate Knowledge Brokers Workshop. http://cdkn.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/2013-CKB-Workshop-Report-Final.pdf

Chicago

Climate and Development Knowledge Network. Climate Knowledge Brokers Workshop. 2013. http://cdkn.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/2013-CKB-Workshop-Report-Final.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Climate and Development Knowledge Network |title=Climate Knowledge Brokers Workshop |date=2013 |url=http://cdkn.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/2013-CKB-Workshop-Report-Final.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{climateanddevelopmentknowledgenetwork2013climate, author = {{Climate and Development Knowledge Network}}, title = {{Climate Knowledge Brokers Workshop}}, institution = {Climate and Development Knowledge Network}, year = {2013}, url = {http://cdkn.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/2013-CKB-Workshop-Report-Final.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }