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25years Empowered lives. Resilient nations. A NEW VISION for Weather and Climate Services in Africa UNDP partners with people at all levels of society to help build nations that can withstand crisis, and drive and sustain the kind of growth that improves the quality of life for everyone. On the ground in more than 170 countries and territories, we offer global perspective and local insight to help empower lives and build resilient nations. The Global Environment Facility (GEF) was established on the eve of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit to help tackle our planet’s most pressing environmental problems. Since then, the GEF has provided US$14.5 billion in grants and mobilized US$75.4 billion in additional financing for almost 4,000 projects. The GEF has become an international partnership of 183 countries, international institutions, civil society organizations and the private sector to address global environmental issues. For more information, visit www.thegef.org. Rights and Permissions This work is available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 IGO license (CC BY 3.0 IGO) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo. Under the Creative Commons Attribution license, you are free to copy, distribute, transmit, and adapt this work, including for commercial purposes, under the following conditions: Attribution—Please cite the work as follows: Snow, John T.; Bonizella Biagini, Greg Benchwick, Georgie George, Joost Hoedjes, Alan Miller, Jeremy Usher, ‘A New Vision for Weather and Climate Services in Africa’, UNDP, New York, USA, 2016. License: Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0 IGO. Translations—If you create a translation of this work, please add the following disclaimer along with the attribution: This translation was not created by the UNDP and should not be considered an official UNDP translation. The UNDP shall not be liable for any content or error in this translation. Adaptations—If you create an adaptation of this work, please add the following disclaimer along with the attribution: This is an adaptation of an original work by the UNDP. Views and opinions expressed in this adaptation are the sole responsibility of the author or authors of the adaptation and are not endorsed by the UNDP. Third-party content—The UNDP does not necessarily own each component of the content contained within the work. The UNDP therefore does not warrant that the use of any third party–owned individual component or part contained in the work will not infringe on the rights of those third parties. The risk of claims resulting from such infringement rests solely with you. If you wish to reuse a component of the work, it is your responsibility to determine whether permission is needed for that reuse and to obtain permission from the copyright owner. Examples of components can include, but are not limited to, tables, figures or images. All queries on rights and licenses should be addressed to the CIRDA Programme ([email protected]). Publication Design: Camilo J. Salomón, www.cjsalomon.com Copy-editing: Meghan Lynn, Annalisa Viray and Montserrat Xilotl The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the United Nations, including UNDP, or the UN Member States. Manufactured in USA Copyright © UNDP 2016. Some Rights Reserved ABOUT THIS REPORT This report is a learning product from the UNDP’s Programme on Climate Information for Resilient Development in Africa (CIRDA), a four-year programme supporting work in 11 African least developed countries with US$50 million from the Global Environment Facility’s Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF). As such, it builds on the expertise of the CIRDA technical team, the products of several workshops, and initial consultations between CIRDA experts and public and private representatives of CIRDA-supported countries. The vision described here is closely related to the work plan and activities of the CIRDA programme. Learn more about the CIRDA programme at www.adaptation-undp.org/projects/cirda, or see p28. The United Nations Development Programme provides support to countries to adapt to climate change in the context of the 2030 Agenda for AN ALL-IN-ONE AUTOMATIC WEATHER STATION (AWS) BEING INSTALLED ON A CELL-PHONE TOWER Sustainable Development, seeking to promote NEAR KOTIDO, UGANDA. FIVE SUCH AWS HAVE BEEN INSTALLED ON CELL TOWERS ACROSS UGANDA THROUGH THE COUNTRY’S STRENGTHENING CLIMATE INFORMATION AND EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS pro-poor and pro-growth adaptation that encourages PROJECT. CONNECTED DIRECTLY INTO THE TELEPHONE BACKBONE NETWORK, THE DATA ARE SENT TO climate-resilient economic development and sustainable UGANDA NATIONAL METEOROLOGICAL AUTHORITY (UNMA) FOR PROCESSING AND ANALYSIS. THE FIVE STATIONS, EACH OF WHICH ALSO INCLUDE A LIGHTNING LOCATING SENSOR, WILL PROVIDE DATA TO AN livelihoods in the face of climate change. END-TO-END MONITORING AND FORECASTING SYSTEM, WHICH ALLOWS UNMA TO ISSUE EARLY WARNINGS FOR IMPENDING HAZARDOUS THUNDERSTORMS, CONNECT WITH REGIONAL MONITORING SYSTEMS AND IMPROVE THE COUNTRY’S OVERALL SUSTAINABILITY OF INVESTMENTS IN CLIMATE INFORMATION UNDP-supported projects and programmes at the SERVICES. PHOTO BY SOLOMON MANGENI. country level are organized around six Signature Programmes: Supporting Integrated Climate Change UNDP supports developing countries to access financing Strategies; Advancing Cross-sectoral Climate Resilient for climate change adaptation through several sources Livelihoods; Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA); of global environmental finance, including those Fostering Resilience for Food Security; Climate Resilient managed by the Global Environment Facility, namely, Integrated Water Resource and Coastal Management; the Least Developed Country Fund (LDCF), Special Climate and Promoting Climate Resilient Infrastructure Change Fund (SCCF) and the Adaptation Fund (AF); and Energy. the Green Climate Fund; and bilateral and multilateral donors. These projects cover a wide range of sectors and The CIRDA Programme works within the Advanced involve governments, Community-Based Organizations Cross-sectoral Climate Resilient Livelihoods Signature (CBOs) and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) Programme. By supporting the development of early working together to deliver information and solutions warning systems across Africa, Asia and the Pacific, for adaptation to climate variability and change. A key it assists countries to respond to both short-term/ component of many of these projects is delivering rapid-onset climatic hazards (e.g., cyclones, floods accessible, credible, appropriate and actionable weather and storms), as well as long-term/slow-onset hazards (e.g., drought and long-term climate change). A NEW VISION FOR WEATHER AND CLIMATE SERVICES IN AFRICA I INTRODUCTION i PHOTO BY UNDP. and climate information, at time and space scales that can be used for decision-making in project-relevant CONTRIBUTORS sectors and areas. Editorial Director To achieve this, investments are made in all aspects Bonizella Biagini of the information value chain, from building and Dr. Bonizella (Boni) Biagini currently manages the UNDP strengthening observation networks, developing CIRDA Programme. She was the editorial director of this risk-related and tailored products, improving publication, providing overall direction for the content, communications and information sharing, to scope and extent of the work. building services for communities, decision makers and businesses to use and understand weather Prior to joining UNDP in 2014, Dr. Biagini worked at the and climate-related information. In least developed Global Environment Facility (GEF) for 12 years, leading countries (LDCs) where human, technical and financial the creation and development of the GEF Adaptation capacities may be limited, this involves focusing programme and project portfolio. She was the senior resources to address critical gaps, for example in official responsible for mobilizing resources for the first operating and maintaining observing IT infrastructure, two dedicated adaptation funds: the Least Developed developing hazard modelling and forecasting Country Fund (LDCF) and the Special Climate Change capabilities, promoting institutional cooperation, Fund (SCCF), which together have received donor introducing mobile-phone-based technologies and support of US$1.5 billion. Before joining GEF, Dr. Biagini involving communities in both data collection and worked at several NGOs including the Climate, Energy contributing to the development of warnings and and Pollution Program at the World Resources Institute advisories. To do this in sustainable ways is often and the international office of Legambiente, a leading difficult, but can be achieved by least developed Italian environmental research organization. countries through carefully building on existing A physicist by training, Dr. Biagini has worked on capacities, developing links between projects climate change and other global environmental and institutions, and introducing new low-cost issues for 25 years in Europe, the United States, Africa, technologies and promoting revenue streams Asia, and several small island states. In addition to through both public and private sectors. ii A NEW VISION FOR WEATHER AND CLIMATE SERVICES IN AFRICA I INTRODUCTION her technical skills, her background encompasses an Joost Hoedjes unusual combination of operational experience on the Joost Hoedjes is a Country Support Specialist in Hydrology ground and high-level participation in international for