Article by Solving-FCB Work/Learn Student Duncan Murray and Dr. Temitope Sogbanmu.
A principle guiding the Solving FCB project is to seek and act on input from various community stakeholders. It is also a key principle driving the work of Dr. Temitope Sogbanmu, a co-investigator of the West Africa case study, environmental toxicologist, and senior lecturer at the University of Lagos. In the month following the West Africa case study inception meeting, Dr. Sogbanmu co-led a workshop attended by the stakeholders composing West Africa’s fish production industry. Attendees spread across a broad spectrum, from researchers to private sector representatives, fisher-folk, and ministry officials. In total, thirty-seven different groups represented themselves at the workshop.
In conversation, Dr. Sogbanmu stressed the importance of group participation in research, as it helps ensure that scientists adequately account for the perspectives of all parties. Interacting with all these groups in concert protects against a top-down approach, which can debilitate outcomes. “Participatory action research,” Dr. Sogbanmu explained, “actually shows the benefit of not relying on scientific evidence alone, but also evidence from Indigenous people, people who work in that space and who can do this on the ground, real life and historical information about these challenges that we are working towards solving.”
Reflecting on April’s workshop, Dr. Sogbanmu explained how, having co-created the challenges with stakeholders, research programs can build upon a firm foundation. “Our first interaction in April was about co-creating with [the stakeholders], through a workshop, the Solving FCB challenges. Specifically, the challenges of IUU (illegal, unreported, and unregulated) fishing and the challenges of microplastics in fish in our marine ecosystems in Nigeria.” She calls this process, by which knowledge production occurs through the collaboration of many hands, co-creation – and it characterizes so much of her work.
Two years ago, in 2022, Dr. Sogbanmu was named a Science Advice Skills Development Program (SASDP) Fellow, which sharpened her focus on addressing climate issues through science advice in Africa. Working with a science diplomat, she co-developed the Global Youth Indigenous Summit on Climate Change. The goal was to create an opportunity for local and indigenous people to move to the “eye-level” of the deliberation process, thereby gaining access to the spaces in which decisions are made about the land they themselves understand intuitively. The first summit was held in 2023, with attendees from around the world.
Under this fellowship, Dr. Sogbanmu co-authored a commentary in Nature titled, “Indigenous Youth Must be at the Forefront of Climate Diplomacy,” arguing that “holistic approaches to water and land management hold the key to a more sustainable future.” Much has been done to cultivate this global indigenous youth program – and it is starting to bear fruit. Various organizations are approaching summit attendees, asking them to share their perspectives and present their vision for change. “What is very, very critical,” Dr. Sogbanmu said, “is that they don’t have to adapt or present themselves in Western-style way, but come as they are, make their own voices.” In 2026, Nature will publish a book based on the work of the Global Youth Indigenous Summit on Climate Change, which features writing from various indigenous contributors worldwide.
As a member of the Solving FCB project, Dr. Sogbanmu focuses on pollutant assessment and management, with a particular concern for the effects of microplastics on the Gulf of Guinea ecosystem and, ultimately, West Africa’s fish industry. The effects of these particles are one aspect of a complex web of issues abetting fish production decline in the region – a region struck by climate change-induced tidal waves and rife with destructive fishing methods. Having co-created research objectives earlier this year, Dr. Sogbanmu said the team is now moving toward co-creating desirable outcomes, working with local stakeholders to preserve and enhance West Africa’s fisheries into the future.
