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Visual Analytics for Sustainability and Climate Change/Isla Haddow-Flood

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Interview with by Iolanda Pensa and Chiara Somajni, 12 November 2025, CC BY 4.0.

Isla Haddow-Flood is the co-director of Wiki in Africa (partner organization)

Notes from the interview

(Notes to be edited)

Isla Haddow-Flood Co-director of Wiki in Africa based in Cape Town She used to work in the field of arts and culture.


Actions

  1. clusters of articles related to Africa and specific countries
  2. research about training for media / journalists (how they engage with this information and how to write articles related to climate change). In particular focus on disasters.
  3. following and supporting the action plan of Wiki in Africa
  4. attention to the description in the tool

Addressing the content gaps in Africa. With different kind of activities

  • Contest Wiki loves Africa (for 12 years).
  • Gender gap initiatives - under the umbrella of Wikiwomen.

Close the international knowledge gap but also supporting the female leadership in Africa

  • Offline eduction activities.

In climate change in support "Africa knowledge initiative" - collaboration WMF and African union. The idea was to celebrate three African days: among those days there is one on environment. So the focus with their work with Ivory Coast was to show how climate change is seen from different African countries. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Africa_Environment/2023_Final_Report At the same time Wiki Loves Africa theme was climate change and the interivews with women (she said) were focussed on people active in the field of climate change

The media coverage of climate change in Africa is very limited.

The Africa knowledge initiative stopped (it was a month of activities). The idea is to host a climate change focussed project and to start it with Visualising Wikipedia.

  • We want to make an event for 3-4 months
  • Maybe doing. it during COP to drive attention and use the visibility of the topic
  • collaborate with people we already work with to identify needs. Preparing the project with different local teams and identify partners.
  • involve partners to get the data - buidling partnerships. The difficulty is to have the partners engageed and contributing with staff time.
  • training
  • working groups in different spaces

For me is a long term plan. We will plan it in the second semester of 2026.

How to use the tool 1. benchmark. Starting point, motivating volunteers. 2. supporting the communities in planning activities and the most impactful initiative 3. Showing impact 4. [Iolanda] Opportunity of content donation - this is why Creative Commons is involved. Using the tool to motivate people/institutions in providing data and sources. (e.g. showing gaps) 5. Fundraising. 6. training/presentations for the organisers. Supporting them in using the tool for their activities. Useful for partnerships with universities. 7. training for media on how to work with wikipedia and how to use it. media partnership to support them in identify how talk about climate change and where to find information.

[Iolanda] In Latin America Evelin is working on this; her vision is to get Unesco involved, focusing on information integrity, using the same language Unesco uses to strengthen the link

8. Collaborations with UN; collaboration with WIPO and difficulties in having events focusing on gender and climate change.

[Iolanda] UN collaboration: no money, but relevant in terms of alliances

Consider local context and where the Unesco office is located - in South Africa under the Edu department - difficult to engage with them on scienctific projects

[Iolanda] training journalist: limited experiences, a bit in Italy mixed with internal communication skills we can look at other available resources journalists rarely engage with Wikimedia projects

It would be useful to be able to show what information is available for journalists (sources, experts in the area, data) with Unesco it would be a bit different: what we do with your content

Branding. impact strategy launched this year activating Africa, i.e. activating the community, reclaiming the space dedicated to environment activities related to support, training, facilitating... https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pg9hO40RL-LoVluLfePW5i0x86SWQ3am/view Tone: friendly for the wikimedia communities Technical and academic doesn't work for the wikimedia communities. Different approach to partners (think tank, universities, government)

Iolanda friendliness makes it easy for people to join in you produce a lot of content, regular productionis also notable and effective continental approach

Integration with Wikidata

Visualising tool

  • key for the color more clear (upper part of the page)
  • the instructions - at the moment below the scroll. maybe more at the beginning to allow access; could be a drop down menu
  • color very light. problem with accessibility.
  • pretty but very light
  • purple lovely and friendly but there is an issue with a messagen(which is very serious!).
  • adding a short description of what you are looking at (i.e. earth science: this is an analysis of articles related to...)
  • crisis palette
  • palette could be chosen by user
  • adding texts that describe what people are looking at

Suggested requirements

[edit]
  • Immediate access to the tool’s legend and instructions located at the top of the page (blending option)
  • Concise description explaining what the user is looking at (one sentence at the top)
  • Colour palette designed to:
    • support accessibility
    • be adaptable to user's needs and preferences
    • conveying urgency where necessary.
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