Multi-scale participatory indicator development approaches for climate change risk assessment in West Africa $ Daniel K. Asare-Kyei n , Julia Kloos, Fabrice G. Renaud Q1 United Nations University, Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU–EHS), UNCampus, Platz der Vereinten Nationen 1, 53113 Bonn, Germany article info Article history: Received 5 July 2014 Received in revised form 14 November 2014 Accepted 21 November 2014 Keywords: Expert knowledge Indicators Multiple hazards Participatory assessment Risk West Africa abstract A multi-scale participatory process was used to extend the classical approach of indicator development for risk assessment in West Africa. The approach followed a step-wise procedure to develop Indicator Reference Sheet based on conceptual risk assessment framework and combined with knowledge of local experts iteratively selected through snowball approach. Existing risk assessment frameworks being modified to account for multiple hazards were merged into a coherent framework to categorize the components of risks. Local experts including at risk populations were constituted into technical working groups to elicit important processes shaping risks at multiple spatial scales. The results showed that more than half of the designated local level indicators and over two- third of macro scale indicators are rarely used in present risk assessments in the region. Additionally, although an indicator may be common to three countries, their differential rankings will result in differences in explaining the risks faced by people in different societies. However, there were indicators that were unique to each country and this has wider implications for risk assessment that uses common indicators for different coun- tries for comparative purposes. An important output of the study is the identification of locally and nationally evaluated indicator sets for assessing the risk to natural hazards. While it has neither been optimal to completely neglect classical approaches nor to take as an absolute fact opinions from local experts, more emphasis should be paid to the latter in risk assessment that is supposed to serve the very people on whose behalf the as- sessment is done. & 2014 Published by Elsevier Ltd. 1. Introduction The dominance of rain-fed agriculture in West Africa where 60% of the population is engaged in agriculture [1] makes its population vulnerable to climate change and variability. The recent IPCC report ([2] p. 3) reported with high confidence that the interaction of climate change with non-climate stressors will “exacerbate vulnerability of agricultural systems in semi- arid” Africa such as the West Sudanian Savanna region of Burkina Faso, Ghana and Benin. Vulnerabilities are shaped through 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41 43 45 47 49 51 53 55 57 59 61 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijdrr International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2014.11.001 2212-4209/& 2014 Published by Elsevier Ltd. ☆ This article is a revised and expanded version of a paper entitled “Participatory approaches to develop indicators for multiple risk assessment linking different scales in West African Social–Ecological Systems under climate change” presented at the ANDROID Residential Doctoral School, Limassol, Cyprus, 23–24 October 2013. ISBN: 978-1-907842-52-8. n Corresponding author. Fax: þ49 228 815 0299. E-mail addresses: asare-kyei@ehs.unu.edu (D.K. Asare-Kyei), kloos@ehs.unu.edu (J. Kloos), renaud@ehs.unu.edu (F.G. Renaud). International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction ∎ (∎∎∎∎) ∎∎∎–∎∎∎ Please cite this article as: D.K. Asare-Kyei, et al., Multi-scale participatory indicator development approaches for climate change risk assessment in West Africa, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j. ijdrr.2014.11.001i