Please find below the
Finalist Evaluation
Judges'' ratings
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Judges'' comments
Your proposal has been selected as a Finalist!
Congratulations! Your proposal, Sand Dams for Climate Change Adaptation in Ghana in the Adaptation contest, has been selected to advance to the Finalists round.
Be proud of your accomplishment – more than 350 proposals were submitted and only a very small number have been advanced through these two rounds of judging.
As a Finalist, your proposal is eligible for the contest’s Judges Choice award, as well as the contest’s Popular Choice award, which is determined by public voting.
If you haven’t already, you will soon receive an email from the Climate CoLab staff with details about the voting period. If you don’t receive that email within the next day, or have other questions, please contact the Climate CoLab staff at admin@climatecolab.org
All winners will be announced the week after the voting period ends, on September 12, 2015 at midnight Eastern Time.
Both Judges Choice and Popular Choice will receive a special invitation to attend selected sessions at MIT’s SOLVE conference and present their proposals before key constituents in a workshop the next day, where a $10,000 Grand Prize will be awarded. A few select Climate CoLab winners will join distinguished SOLVE attendees in a highly collaborative problem-solving session. Some contests have additional prizes given by the contest sponsor.
Thank you for your work on this very important issue. We’re proud of your proposal, and we hope that you are too. Again, congratulations!
2015 Climate CoLab Judges
Additional comments from the Judges:
This is a strong proposal. But as I mentioned in my earlier feedback, I would have liked to have had more information about the way in which the team proposed to approach local communities. The current "Involving Beneficiary Communities" is a good beginning. But it doesn't include any discussion of how you intend to approach local property owners or politicians. Their support will be crucial to the success of your project. More specifically, the dams that you propose will have to be built on land that is already controlled either by private landowners, or some level of government. You haven't discussed at all how you intend to obtain the rights to build on this land. I'd recommend thinking about this issue carefully. From a judges perspective, it would also have been good to know whether G4CC had any experience managing a project of this kind. Finally, your budget seems a unbalanced. Less than half of the budget is going towards the construction of the dams or engaging with the local communities. On the other hand, your estimates for travel, experts, and miscellaneous expenses seem very high.
This is a very well laid out proposal that looks to adapt to a drying world. The preparations seem very thorough and the costs reasonable. As an ecologist, I would like to see the authors include consideration of the impacts to wildlife and ecosystem services. For example, how would the dams impact important wildlife areas nearby or interrupt fisheries in the rivers that are dammed? These local communities could be negatively impacted by efforts that are mainly approached with an engineers point of view.
Semi-Finalist Evaluation
Judges'' ratings
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Judges'' comments
SUBJECT: Your proposal has been selected as a Semi-Finalist!
Congratulations! Your proposal, Sand Dams for Climate Change in Ghana in the Adaptation contest, has been selected to advance to the Semi-Finalists round.
You will be able to revise your proposal and add new collaborators if you wish, from July 1st until July 14, 2015 at 23:59pm Eastern Time.
Judges' feedback are posted under the "Evaluation" tab of your proposal. Please incorporate this feedback in your revisions, or your proposal may not be advanced to the Finalists round. We ask you to also summarize the changes that you made in the comment section of the Evaluation tab.
At the revision deadline listed below, your proposal will be locked and considered in final form. The Judges will undergo another round of evaluation to ensure that Semi-Finalist proposals have addressed the feedback given, and select which proposals will continue to the Finalists round. Finalists are eligible for the contest’s Judges Choice award, as well as for public voting to select the contest’s Popular Choice award.
Thank you for your great work and again, congratulations!
2015 Climate CoLab Judges
Overall this is a strong proposal that suggests the use of a proven low-cost technology to increase the quality of life, water, and food-security of local residents. It is also clear that the project team has significantly improved their proposal based on the earlier comments and feedback that they received.
Our main concern is the lack of detail on both the project team G4CC and their experience with this kind of project. We would like to know:
Where is G4CC based; how many members does it have; how is it funded; has it carried out projects like this in the past, either in Ghana or elsewhere?
We would also like to know more about how the team plans to engage the local communities. Do members of the G4CC team already gave ties or professional networks in this area? How will they establish themselves as legitimate partners for these communities, have these communities themselves already expressed interest in these kinds of projects?
These issues are as important as the more technical aspects of the project and need to be discussed in more detail.
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 Richard Lamptey Jul 10, 2015 12:48  | Proposal creator
On behalf of the entire G4CC team and on my own behalf, we would like to thank you very much for considering and selecting our project for the semi-final stage of the competition. We are most grateful for the opportunity to help build adaptation to protect the economies and livelihoods of African citizens. We also thank you for your guidance and the training opportunity that comes with the contest in general. We say a big thank you.
We have carefully looked at the Judges' comments and we have integrated the Judges' feedback in our proposal. Below is the summary of the changes we have done;
With regard to the Judges' comments on the lack of details on the G4CC team and their experience, we have included at the section on "Who will these actions", that the G4CC team is based in Ghana. The team is made up of a group of young climate change advocates and researchers who have passion for creating awareness and building the necessary capacity to protect the economies and livelihoods of African citizens. Team members also include geologists,hydrologists,sociologists and geographers together with our implementing partners. The G4CC team is funded by individual members. Though the team has not carried out a sand dam projects before, we have the potential to carry out such projects to help build adaptation for African citizens against the negative impacts of climate change. We also added in that section that the team will engage the local communities through the representatives of the communities (i.e. the chiefs, opinion leaders, local government representatives etc.) and all communications and correspondence shall be carried out with respect to the existing protocols, institutions, rules and customs of the communities.
Also with regard to the Judges' comment on how the team plans to engage the communities, we include in our proposal at the section "What actions do you propose", that communities will be engaged by regular visits to the communities and carrying out meetings with the representatives and members of the communities and this will be done through the existing protocols in the communities.
The G4CC team has some existing ties with some of the communities in the Upper East region of Ghana through our chairperson or team leader who is a native of the region through stakeholder consultations and dialogue with the leaders and the community members. Most of these communities have expressed interest in having a water harvesting and storage system that will enable them provide water for their needs. Also some research publications, media reports, newspaper articles etc. have been indicative of the need to provide a sustainable water source for the communities in the Upper East. In addition it is not a secret in this country that citizens of the Upper East region have need for sustainable source of water.
Through stakeholder consultations and regular meetings with the representatives of the communities, the team plans to establish ourselves as legitimate partners for the communities.
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Richard Lamptey Jul 14, 2015 06:55 | Proposal creator
In the section of the proposal that talks about " Who will take these actions" we have also added that the G4CC team is made up of 11 members and we have already secured partnership with Sand dam experts such as Acacia Water based in the Netherlands who are willing and ready to support with their expertise and skills on the construction of the sand dam.
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