VIDEOS: A Host of Visitors

A walk through the International Research Institute for Climate and Society is often punctuated by the sounds of French, Spanish and other languages drifting through the halls. Our international staff contributes to this, but usually it’s a sign that we are hosting visitors for training and collaborations.

Despite the increasing online connectedness of our world, face-to-face trainings and meetings still matter. Meaningful project results require close collaborations, and it’s hard to build a relationship if you’ve only met over Skype. IRI plays host to dozens of visitors each year in an effort to cultivate and sustain partnerships that will yield relevant and long-lasting results.

So what does a typical visit to IRI comprise? Much of our work revolves around data, including its availability, access and use by decision makers. Not surprisingly, many of our visits from collaborators also revolve around data.

Data has to exist, of course, before it can be used. Visitors come not just to learn or contribute to knowledge about how to use data, but first to help establish critical baseline datasets. This can mean either sharing and pooling existing datasets or strategizing to find new sources that may be useful, such as data from satellites. Many collaborators also receive training on how to use the Data Library to transform data into information that will be used to make decisions in the areas of health, agriculture, water resources and other sectors.

Watch the videos below to learn about some recent collaborators and their visits to IRI.

The first is with Denis Macharia from the Regional Center for Mapping of Resources for Development, based in Nairobi, Kenya. Pietro Ceccato hosted Denis with the goal of learning how to integrate IRI’s Data Library, and especially its health applications, into Macharia’s work with RCMRD.

The second is with Galiné Yanon, a consultant with PlaNet Guarantee in West Africa. While here, Yanon worked with IRI’s Financial Instruments Sector Team to learn how to use satellite rainfall data in index insurance design.

Finally, we have interviews with IRI’s Rémi Cousin and a team of developers from Uruguay’s Ministry of Livestock, Agriculture, and Fisheries. The team has been developing a local version of the IRI Data Library that is housed in Uruguay.