The four-year CREWS East Africa project, funding from CREWS, aims to improve Early Warning Services (EWS) in East Africa and develop the coverage of impact-based early warning services across Lake Victoria and surrounding communities to support the EAC EWS Vision 2025.The WMO  supports in particular the institutional and human capabilities of NMHSs in the East African Community (EAC) region, improving the quality and availability of observational data and facilitate international collaboration and enhance regional capacity to produce and deliver short-term and severe weather forecasts. The project also intends to strengthen impact-based Early Warning Services, enhancing observational data exchange at regional level and upgrading the Weather and Climate Data Management System, NMHSs Public Weather Services infrastructure and the capacity to generate, customize and disseminate hydrometeorological early warning services. Furthermore, the project places a strong emphasis on promoting gender inclusion and addressing the needs of vulnerable groups throughout the entire EW-EA value chain in the region.

The WISER-EWSA project builds on the success of the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) African Science for Weather Information and Forecasting Techniques (SWIFT) project which enabled the development of a weather forecasting app called FASTA (Forecasting African STorms Application). The FASTA app is currently running in Kenya and offers Africa real-time weather information on severe thunderstorms. The project intends to make satellite-based nowcasting (0-6 hours) products more widely available in southern Africa, using the Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) data and the Meteosat Third Generation (when that becomes available). African countries have indicated that they are willing and eager to have their own African Meteorological Satellite Application Facility (AMSAF), which will be run in Africa, by Africa and for African nations. The concept of an African Meteorological Satellite Application Facility was ratified by the Abidjan Declaration in 2019 at the African Ministerial Conference on Meteorology, where it was accepted with enthusiasm by African Members. The AMSAF nowcasting concept is the ideal foundation for the creation of regional hubs where satellite data and products can be accessed and disseminated to others.

This project supports a larger project being carried out by GEF and GFDRR.

CREWS resources contribute to improvement of the Government of Togo’s early warning services for drought, flooding and other severe climate and weather events by enhancing the capacities of national services in charge of: i) meteorology and climate; ii) hydrology; iii) civil protection. CREWS resources supports provision of scientific and technical expertise as well as capacity development among stakeholders and communities involved in early warning (national services, population in areas prone to floods and agricultural drought, etc.)

In Chad, CREWS supports the strengthening of national capacity to deliver climate, hydrometeorological and early warning services in selected sectors and communities. CREWS resources contributes to the improvement of the Government of Chad’s early warning services for drought, flooding and other severe climate and weather-related events by enhancing the capacities of national services in charge of meteorology and climate, hydrology, civil protection, and food security and piloting selected products, which could be replicated and scaled up by larger investment projects. To this scope, CREWS resources leverages additional financing in the area of hydromet and early warning systems by development partners, such as the World Bank Group, the Green Climate Fund and others from within the Africa Hydromet Program.

The Volta Flood and Drought Management (VFDM) project has the ambition to provide the first large scale and transboundary implementation of Integrated Flood and Drought Management strategies through the complete chain of End-to-End Early Warning System for Flood Forecasting and Drought Prediction.  The project will empower the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) and other competent authorities of the six riparian countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Mali and Togo) with robust and innovative solutions for disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation, including capacity development for nature-based solutions and gender-sensitive participatory approaches.

FOCUS-Africa aims to deliver tailored climate services in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region in four key sectors: agriculture and food security, water, energy, and infrastructure. The full-value chain of climate services will be demonstrated by piloting eight case studies in six countries involving a wide range of end-uses and beneficiaries. The case studies will illustrate how the use of climate science, forecasts and projections can maximize socio-economic benefits to specific national private and public sectors in the region. Pathways to scale-up the pilot cases are included for the whole Africa continent through the Regional Climate Fora.  The SADC countries are particularly vulnerable to climate variability, change and extremes: particularly water resources, agriculture, hydropower generation, ecosystems, and basic infrastructures are under stress as a result of increased frequency and intensity of floods, droughts and landslides. The development of improved climate information and forecasts of decision-relevant parameters are essential to address these challenges. Tailor forecasts such as rainfall onset and cessation are regularly requested by users, along with the associated skill information. Development and delivery of such products and services, and evaluation of socio-economic benefits are central to FOCUS-Africa. Both the science and the applications are targeted at specific requirements, capture through engagement with end-users through ongoing projects and consultations. Project end-users are either based, or have operations in Africa, and will therefore provide guidance on both the implementation and assessment of the case studies, and the ensuing delivery of the FOCUS-Africa climate services. Co-production between end users, climate scientists and sectoral service providers will also ensure effective delivery of climate services.  The project will not only benefit the SADC-based users, but the European consortium partners will also greatly enhance their knowledge in both the science and climate services provision. 

The six-year Intra-ACP [African, Caribbean, Pacific Group of States] Climate Services and Related Applications (ClimSA) project – with EUR 85 million in funding from the European Union – aims to improve the production, access to and use of climate information, services and applications for decision makers. The project will foster sustainable development through the prevention of desertification, preservation of ecological biodiversity and the sustainable use of water management in ACP countries.  The WMO grant of EUR 5.5 million supports ACP regional partners to improve the climate services value chain in five priority sectors: agriculture, disaster risk reduction, energy, health, and water. Underpinned by capacity development and knowledge management, WMO technical guidance addresses observations, data, predictions, models and the mainstreaming of climate services into policy processes. 

ACREI is a US$ 6.8 million project funded by the Adaptation Fund and implemented by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in partnership with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC). The Greater Horn of Africa is highly vulnerable to extreme weather and climate events that severely impact the region’s mostly rain-fed agriculture. The risks to rural agro-pastoral livelihoods from drought and floods are enormous. Persistent and deteriorating food and nutrition insecurity remain a major concern. The limited access to climate information and technical support to enhance agricultural productivity, as well as the inadequate funding for response and adaptation options, exacerbate the situation.

West Africa is one of the most vulnerable regions to climate variability and change as it is exposed to climate shocks and stresses and has relatively low capacity to adapt. Hydrometeorological hazards, including droughts, sand and dust storms, flash floods and heavy rainfall result in loss of life and property. 

The CREWS Burkina Faso project is aimed at improving the operational capabilities within Burkina Faso, to produce and deliver hydrological, meteorological and climate services with respect to early warning and with an emphasis on: (i) flood-related risks and (ii) agriculture and food security. The focus of the project is to build capacity of the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services and to strengthen its cooperation with key users and stakeholders in areas of urban development, flood risk management, agriculture and food security. Through this project, capabilities are being developed in data management and analysis, sustaining observing networks, monitoring and forecasting, and warning. The project also enables the strengthening of the interface with the users of this information.

Developing user-driven climate services for food security, health and disaster risk reduction in Malawi and Tanzania

Flash floods are among the world’s deadliest natural disasters with more than 5 000 lives lost annually. Their social, economic and environmental impacts are significant. Accounting for approximately 85% of flooding cases, flash floods also have the highest mortality rate among different classes of flooding, including riverine and coastal. Flash floods differ from river floods in their short time scales and occurrence on small spatial scales, which makes flash flood forecasting a different challenge from large-river flood forecasting. In flash floods forecasting, we are concerned mostly with the forecast of occurrence, and focus on two causative events: 1) intense rainfall; and 2) rainfall on saturated soils. Flash floods occur throughout the world, and the development times vary across regions from minutes to several hours depending on the land surface, geomorphological and hydrometeorological characteristics of the region. However, for the majority of these areas, there exists no formal process or capacity for developing flash flood warnings.

Funded by Norad, GFCS Adaptation in Africa Phase II builds on Phase I and aims to further improve national and regional coordination in Malawi and Tanzania. The aim of the project is to enhance capacity of National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHS) to better anticipate and respond to extreme weather events and climate change. The implementation of Phase II is expected to improve climate services delivery for agriculture and food security, health, and disaster risk reduction. An external evaluation of the previous Norway programmes highlighted that while good progress was accomplished, a second phase was needed to ensure sustainability of activities and processes started in Phase I. Phase II is an extension of Phase I (2014-2017) and the purpose is to ensure the sustainability of Phase I efforts.

Kenya AMDAR is a WMO-led Public Private Partnership between the Kenya Meteorological Department (KMD) and Kenya Airways (KQ)  for the establishment and operation of a meteorological observing program facilitating the automated reporting of meteorological atmospheric information from a fleet of aircraft. The AMDAR program uses the aircraft’s existing sensors, avionics and telecommunication systems to gather, process, and disseminate data. The data is used directly by KMD to improve the accuracy of weather forecasting services to aviation and public weather applications that meet sector-specific needs.   The project also brings wider benefits to Kenya, the African continent and the global community through the positive impact of the use of data in applications associated with climate monitoring and prediction, environmental protection, agriculture, health, and disaster risk reduction.  AMDAR expansion into the data-sparse regions, specifically Africa, will yield greater incremental benefits for developing and emerging markets, which in many cases are more vulnerable to weather-related phenomena than developed economies.

HIGHWAY is a 4,500,000.00 GBP project under the Weather and Climate and Information SErvices for Africa (WISER) programme, funded by the UK department for International Development (DFID) which looks to enhance the resilience of African people and economic development to weather and climate related shocks, with an inital focus on the Lake Victoria Basin (LVB). The LVB is the lifeblood of East Africa supporting approximately 25 percent of the population. The people and economy heavily depend on rain-fed agriculture and fish industries in this basin. On average, 3,000-5,000 deaths occur each year due to navigation accidents caused by strong winds and waves, and there were no regional, operational warning systems in place to protect the safety of those exploiting the natural resources of the LVB.