The United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF) supports civil society projects around the world that strengthen the voice of civil society, promote human rights, and encourage the participation of all groups in democratic processes.
The Cropper Foundation is pleased to announce its 2-year project Using Artificial Intelligence to Enhance Civic Engagement and Climate Action in Trinidad and Tobago, funded by The United Nations Democracy Fund.
Official start date: June 1, 2025.
This project will pilot a closed AI model trained on climate law, policy, and research specific to Trinidad and Tobago. It will provide real-time, localized AI support to strengthen climate reporting, research, and advocacy. Media, academia, educators, students, duty bearers, and civil society will be better equipped to engage with climate issues. The project aims to broaden the national climate discourse and foster inclusive, data-driven action.
Key Challenges Identified:
- Democratic Participation: Despite established democratic institutions, TT faces difficulties in fostering meaningful civic participation, particularly among civil society organizations (CSOs) and marginalized groups, in policy development and climate governance.
- Climate Change Policy: Climate policy development is often dominated by experts with limited public engagement, and media coverage on climate issues is sparse and episodic, limiting public awareness and accountability.
- AI Integration: AI offers potential to enhance evidence-based climate policy and governance but raises concerns about transparency, bias, and exclusion of non-expert voices without proper frameworks.
- Data Gaps: There is a lack of granular, transparent, and localized climate data, limiting the effectiveness of AI tools and CSO advocacy.
- Media and Public Awareness: Limited climate reporting restricts public discourse and accountability; AI-driven tools could empower journalists and citizen media to improve coverage.
- CSO Capacity: Many CSOs lack resources and expertise to utilize AI-generated climate data for effective policy advocacy, especially under tight government timelines.
Expected Outcomes:
Outcome 1: Increased awareness and understanding of both the opportunities and challenges of AI in climate policy development through the increased adoption of responsibly designed and locally relevant artificial intelligence tools and the increased access to and integration of climate policy information parsed and processed by the AI model.
Outcome 2: Enhanced awareness, understanding, and use of the climate AI tool among media, schools, and the wider public through targeted outreach, training, and improved quality and quantity of traditional and citizen media reporting on climate issues.
Outcome 3: Increased confidence, responsiveness and capacity of underrepresented civil society organisations and their beneficiaries to effectively participate in national climate policy development through increased availability, accessibility and usability of relevant climate data through the trained AI tool.
Project partners: Trinidad and Tobago Network Information Centre (TTNIC) – TTLAB and Media Institute of the Caribbean (MIC)