Good institutional governance and management is one of the key elements of an efficient and sustainable National Meteorological and Hydrological Service (NMHS). In support of this, WMO and the South African Weather Service jointly organized the conference Leadership and Management of National Meteorological and Hydrological Services in Africa, which took place from 18 to 22 November in Boksburg, South Africa.
The conference addressed the increased demand across Africa, as elsewhere around the globe, for NMHSs to provide more accurate and timely weather, water and climate services to safeguard lives and livelihoods. This is especially important given the more frequent occurrence of extreme weather and climate events across Africa, which significantly impacts the lives and livelihoods of vulnerable communities.
Fifty-five participants from 41 countries, including 32 Permanent Representatives with WMO took part.
The conference achieved several valuable outcomes, including:
- Increased knowledge of the leadership role of NMHSs in their capacity to perform their mandate, through the acquisition of new strategies and development of scenarios in information processing as a contribution to sustainable national development.
- Enhanced understanding of decision makers and related institutions to support science-based decisions that inform policy to mainstream weather, water, climate services into socioeconomic development and promote increased national funding to NMHSs.
- Identified concrete actions to support NMHSs in Africa to develop and retain sustainable skills, expertise and competencies to produce customer-tailored services as well as provide good leadership required to interact effectively with decision makers in government.
- Enhanced understanding of the weather-water-climate user community on the added value of engaging in partnerships in support of NMHSs to collect and process data and deliver services as may be required.
- Sensitized participants towards a new line of thinking as they deal with a variety of societal and economic issues in a dynamic world.
- Provided a set of reference materials for leadership and management with emphasis on meteorological, hydrological, environmental and related services.
More information, including list of participants and presentations, is available on the WMO Education and Training Programme platform.
