Holden et al. (2026) recently published very interesting findings in Nature Climate Action and I find they support the arguments I make in my thesis (albeit from a different angle). They “investigate the relationship between users’ current climate-service use and desired needs for completely new climate services for nature-based solutions in Sub-Saharan Africa, based on 530 interviews” (Holden et al. 2026) of people involved in nature-based projects in Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Madagascar and South Africa. For the purpose of this excited blog post, I’ll use the Conversation piece written by 4 members of the large author team to popularize their research. What is most interesting, from the service design point of view, is their conclusion:
Simply asking people what climate information they need is not enough. Scientists, providers, users and local and Indigenous knowledge holders need the time, resources and incentives to develop climate services together. (Holden et al. 2026)
That is, simply eliciting user needs is not enough. Co-creation is required, and, most importantly, climate services must be co-created with multiple knowledge systems if they are to be truly useful to the end-users. Nature-based solutions cannot rely only on modern western science but must find ways to collaborate with the indigenous, local, traditional knowledges of the setting.
More than 80% said existing climate services had limitations. One major problem was that Indigenous and local knowledge forecasting or decision making was not connected to formal climate services. For example, in Turkana, Kenya, traditional seers known as Emuron use Indigenous practices to anticipate severe weather and other climate disasters. Elders also send scouts to assess pasture and water before deciding where livestock should move. But these practices are not connected to formal climate services. (Holden et al. 2026)
I see this as a service design challenge, and one which the dominant knowledge system may not be in a position to fulfill. Here, the missing component of ‘user needs’ is not ‘needs’ per se so much as it is the knowledge of the users themselves which is needed. How might we co-create services with multiple knowledge systems? It is this challenge I address, as a designer and researcher, in my doctoral thesis, beginning with upfront user research for planning and design of just and equitable co-creation interfaces for such public service projects. From my perspective as a professional design researcher, Holden et al. (2026) conducted valuable user research amongst 530 users of climate services in multi-epistemological settings where local, traditional, and indigenous knowledge systems can be expected. Clearly, to find scholarship which pinpoints the exact challenge I chose to focus on as one which remains unfulfilled is exciting.