Serious Games and Forum Theatre as Catalysts for Inclusive & Participatory Green Transition

The archipelago country of São Tomé and Príncipe is recognized as one of the most interesting biodiversity hotspots in the Gulf of Guinea, with a large percentage of endemism. However, the country faces significant threats to its unique Natural Capital due to poor environmental governance and resource depletion, associated with population growth. BirdLife International, in collaboration with LEAF Inspiring Change, ETH, and CIRAD, has developed a serious game prototype named "Dukunu Mole" to explore alternative development pathways for Natural Resources & Land Use management in São Tomé. The game was tested with different groups, refined and recalibrated through several iterations based on players’ feedback, and validated.

The project aims to upscale the game's use and mainstream its adoption to foster awareness, dialogue, and policies around biodiversity conservation. We aim to disseminate the approach within diverse arenas: youth & students, policy makers, other islands population and larger audience. To do so, we will combine the approach with Forum Theatre to overcome the attendance limitations within a
given game session and reach for larger number in a single setting. The impact of the project will streamline the Serious Game and Forum Theatre approaches as part of BirdLife's engagement activities with communities and stakeholders, integrating the tools into
environmental curricula at various educational levels, and creating a change in narrative on the current topic of biodiversity conservation. The focus will be on communicating the benefits of co-management through trusted messengers and amplifiers, multiplying audiences and channels of diffusion, and creating a joint definition of a theory of change for green development with replicability in similar biomes
and other Small Island Developing States. The project will promote experiential learning, offering an innovative approach to stakeholder engagement, leading to informed and inclusive decision-making processes, transparent democratic dialogues, and sustainable and equitable landscapes.

Contact: Dr. Anne Giger Dray

Partners:

BirdLife
CIRAD