Towards a Climate Security Observatory 2.0: lessons from a year of implementation

In 2023, the Climate Security Observatory (CSO) launched its first public version, aiming to bridge the gap between climate science and resilient peace. This open-source, online platform was createdin partnership with Scio Systems,based on user-centric design principlestooffer policymakers, researchers, and practitionersworking at the intersection of climate, peace, and securitya set of tools and analysesto support decision-making. The primary aim? To providedata-driven insights into the complex interactions between climate-related hazards, conflictand their impacts, and to help reduce resultinginsecuritiesby promoting actionable, science-backed solutions.

After a year of implementation and gathering additional user feedback, the CSO is undergoing significant changes and improvements. This is to account for the activities and experiences of global users and regional partners. In this blog post, we explore the key transformations that will shape the CSO 2.0, highlighting the platform's evolution and its growing impact.

Key outcomes: leveraging CSO evidence for policy

Since May 2023, the platform has had more than six thousand visits from 122 countries. Beyond that, one of the CSO's most notable achievements during its first year was its contribution to policy formulation across various regions. For example, in Kenya, the platform's analysis helped shape the country's National Climate Change Action Plan (NCCAP III), ensuring that climate security was adequately addressed in the national adaptation and mitigation strategy for 2023-2027. In Senegal and Zambia, CSO data and analytics helped integrate a climate, peace, and security lens into national strategies (the National Committee for Climate Change and the Green Growth Strategy, respectively), particularly through capacity development and data-sharing frameworks.

Regionally, in East Africa, CSO data informed the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the African Union, promoting climate-sensitive security policies in the region and in Central America. It contributed to updating the Central American Commission on Environment and Development's Regional Climate Strategy, ensuring a focus on climate security.

These examples demonstrate the CSO's effectiveness in assessing climate security risks from various perspectives and translating those insights into actionable policy across different geopolitical contexts.

Legend: Geographic distribution of CSO traffic, May 2023 to October 2024.

Feedback from CSO 1.0 : challenges and lessons learned

While the CSO 1.0 successfully laid the groundwork as the platform's first public user interface, several areas for improvement were identified. Key feedback included:

1. Clarifying the platform's target audience: the CSO's dual focus on research and policy led to confusion over its intended users. Some partners found it challenging to navigate between scientific analysis and practical policy implications.
2. Improving user experience: issues like slow buffering, complex navigation and complicated outputs were raised, prompting a need for a more streamlined, user-friendly design.
3. Focus on localized data: users sought more localized data to enable better country-specific risk assessments and recommendations. There was also a demand for more digestible analysis that could be easily translated into policy action.

The CSO 2.0: a revised structure and enhanced features

In response to this feedback, the CSO is undergoing a series of changes to address these challenges and better meet the needs of its users. The revised platform will feature:

- Enhanced navigation: A cleaner and more intuitive interface allows users to easily access country profiles, global tools, and resources, as well as answers to critical questions on climate security.

- Increased coverage: with a new landing page that presents a world map overlay that highlights key climate, conflict, and displacement data, insights will be available at a global scale.

- Improved data presentation: CSO 2.0 places greater emphasis on translating complex climate, security and socioeconomic data into actionable policy recommendations, ensuring that analyses are easy to interpret. For each country profile, key messages, context, and pathways through which climate, peace and security interact are clearly outlined.

The road ahead

As the CSO continues to evolve, its focus remains on providing robust, evidence-based insights that can inform both climate resilience and conflict mitigation strategies. Looking ahead, the CSO's next steps involve deeper engagement with regional partners, with increased use of localized data sources, stronger validation at the national level, and further enhancements to data accessibility and usability. Furthermore, we will increase efforts to collaborate with existing similar products and dashboards to prevent duplication and maximize insights.

The platform's user-centric approach, continuous refinement, and its focus on policy support make it a key resource to address the intersection of climate change and security. One year after its launch, the Climate Security Observatory has proven its value and is now on track to make an even bigger impact through its refined 2.0 version, set to become an indispensable tool supporting global efforts toward climate-resilient peace.

A test version of the CSO 2.0 prototype can be accessed here and user feedback is highly encouraged! We expect to launch the fully redesigned platform in 2025.

Authors: Bia Carneiro, Alessandro Craparo, (Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT)

This work was carried out with support from the CGIAR Initiative on Climate Resilience (ClimBeR) and the CGIAR Initiative on Fragility, Conflict, and Migration (FCM). We would like to thank all funders who supported this research through their contributions to the CGIAR Trust Fund: https://www.cgiar.org/funders/

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