CO-AI: Bridging Local Knowledge and AI through Coproduced Tools for Disaster Risk Reduction
PI and co-PIs: Timon McPhearson (New York University, United States); Christopher Kennedy (New York University, United States); Brian Palmer (ICLEI Africa, South Africa); Clara Marais (ICLEI Africa, South Africa); Kate Strachan (ICLEI Africa, South Africa)
Funding amount: $150,000
Project overview: Cities across Africa are experiencing intensifying climate hazards—from extreme heat to severe urban flooding—driven by a combination of rapid urbanization, aging infrastructure, and global climate change. Yet many local governments lack the high-resolution, localized data needed to plan effectively for these challenges, leaving vulnerable communities at disproportionate risk. To address this gap, the project will co-produce local datasets on inland flooding and extreme heat in Cape Coast, Ghana, and Cape Town, South Africa, using advanced AI approaches. In collaboration with ICLEI Africa and local partners, the goal is to generate actionable climate hazard data to inform preparedness, adaptation, and infrastructure planning. At the core of the effort is ClimateIQ, an open-access climate risk assessment tool that combines global and local data with advanced machine learning to produce high resolution climate hazard exposure information. Through a participatory coproduction process led by ICLEI Africa, the project team will work with municipal agencies, community organizations, and researchers to integrate lived experience, community knowledge, and local datasets into the machine learning model. The resulting tool will not only enhance ClimateIQ’s accuracy in African cities, but also provide public-facing dashboards, APIs, and datasets to support broader climate resilience efforts. By focusing on cities in the Global South, the project addresses a longstanding equity gap in climate risk modeling and data access. The high-resolution datasets and tools produced will be openly available for use by governments, civil society, and international agencies—and are designed to be scalable to other regions across Africa and the Global South.
Disaster Management and Relief Cities & Urban Planning Climate Science & Modeling Extreme Weather Forecasting