Ignatius Ogbaga

and 1 more

Climate change presents one of the most significant challenges facing humanity in the 21st century. Mitigating its impacts and developing sustainable solutions requires a multidisciplinary approach that leverages advanced technologies. This paper proposed the deployment of cooperative Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents as a viable strategy for contextualizing solutions to climate change. Firstly, it explored the use of AI agents in analyzing climate data, predicting future trends, and informing decision-making processes. This data-driven approach can help policymakers, scientists, and stakeholders to better understand the complex dynamics of climate change and design effective mitigation and adaptation strategies. This research also addressed ethical considerations associated with the deployment of AI agents in climate change contexts. It emphasized the importance of transparent and accountable AI systems, ensuring that their decisions align with human values and priorities. Additionally, it discussed the need for interdisciplinary collaboration to guide the development and deployment of AI agents, fostering inclusivity, fairness, and equitable access to AI technologies. Finally, this paper highlighted the potential of cooperative AI agents as a powerful tool for contextualizing solutions to climate change. By harnessing their analytical capabilities, adaptability, and collaboration potential, these agents can facilitate evidence-based decision-making, optimize resource management, and support the transition to a sustainable future. However, it also emphasizes the importance of addressing ethical concerns and fostering responsible AI development to ensure that AI agents serve as enablers rather than substitutes for human judgment and action.
This study focused on developing a persuasive technology-based mobile intervention system to support users to adopt malaria prevention and control measures.  As a first step towards contributing to research, user-centered research to uncover the factors preventing the adoption of the existing malaria preventive measures and the appropriate persuasive strategies that could be employed to motivate users to adopt the expected malaria prevention and control behaviors was conducted. Findings from this study were mapped into their corresponding persuasive strategies during the research design before being operationalized. The intervention system developed is a mobile phone-based application, code-named Go-Malaria. The intervention system embodies text notifications, and audio and video tutorials made in English, Igbo, and Abakaliki languages to engage users based on their preferences. This research was carried out in Ebonyi State. Three Local Government Areas (LGAs) were selected for the study based on three inclusion criteria: high rate of malaria fatality, proximity to the river, and availability of mobile phone network. The research was conducted in 3 phases viz: Pre-evaluation study to determine the factors militating against malaria prevention, research design and intervention system development and deployment, and evaluation phase to measure the impact of the intervention system using quantitative analysis tool (SPSS). The result of the evaluation study indicated reductions in the rate of malaria cases when compared to the cases recorded during the baseline study, from 96.9% to 68.5%, and ownership of mosquito nets and usage increased from 54% to 85.5% within the intervention group