Rural agricultural communities play a pivotal role in the economic, social, and cultural fabric of developing countries which are plagued with poverty, remoteness and marginalisation. For such communities, information and communication technologies (ICTs) can enable new responses to the challenges posed by climate change. This Strategy Brief identifies the role of ICTs within the climate change responses of rural agricultural communities in developing countries. It identifies different types of ICT interventions, key enablers and constraints to the use of these tools within rural agricultural settings impacted by climate change. The analysis focuses on the following success/failure factors in the design of ICT and climate change initiatives:

access – barriers of ICT access still persist in rural agricultural communities
knowledge infomediaries – rural communities' capacity to access, interpret and analyse climate change data
appropriate climate change content constitutes one of the most critical challenges for the effective use of climate change information at the local level
multi-stakeholder engagement of community members, local governments, NGOs and funding bodies can complicate local interactions and management of local resources, is time-consuming, and politically sensitive
in addition to ICT-enabled access to new climatic information, the traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples strengthens adaptation to climate change
in addition to facilitating access to relevant information, ICTs should foster the usability of climate change information within vulnerable agricultural contexts.

The briefing recommends the following steps to integrate ICTs into climate change responses:

income generation is a pillar upon which rural agricultural livelihoods can build resilience in the face of climate change
foster the role of local knowledge infomediaries through whom climate change information can be integrated into local practices
provide local communities with new tools to cope with uncertainty using new and traditional ICTs to strengthen their decision-making capacity
strengthen the foundations by providing climate change and ICT awareness, locally-relevant information, and developing indicators on current and future vulnerabilities
build upon traditional knowledge to bridge the existing gap between scientific resources and indigenous practices
integrate climate change and ICTs into livelihood information systems and development interventions
adopt a process that involves bottom-up beneficiary participation, flexible and phased implementation, learning from doing, and mechanisms for local and multi-stakeholder support.