The Planning workshop

The planning workshop brought together key climate information service providers as well as national and regional data and information management institutions within the Eastern Africa region to discuss and plan for a regional climate information Network, as well as explore opportunities for improvement and integration of existing climate information user interfaces into a regional system.

The workshop objectives included, assessing the current situation of climate Information in the EAC region, a review and discussion of the climate information users and service providers survey results, a discussion on the study sectoral “ use cases” to facilitate dialogue and analysis, achieve a consensus on a set of strategies to improve and integrate climate information interfaces including producers, providers and users, develop a draft one year implementation plan and to create mutual understanding and commitment within the climate information network group.

The CIU and SP assessment survey- preliminary results

Prior to this workshop, the PREPARED program through one of its partners, the Centre for International Earth Science Information Network within the Earth institute at Columbia University in New York, had conducted a climate information users and service providers assessment within the five East Africa countries. The survey respondents to this assessment were drawn from the meteorology agencies in the five EAC countries.

Some of the draft results of this assessment shared during the workshop included, the usage of climate information by the specific users, the results indicated that the most useful products mentioned during the assessment, included observed weather records and datasets closely followed by seasonal climate forecasts and outlooks. The question on why the users found these as the most useful products, respondents said, the climatic forecasts and outlooks like early warnings, advisories on food insecurity and crisis were important for decision makers and end users to better anticipate and mitigate climate risks. These products and services were also used by communities for climate preparedness and planning thereby reducing overall vulnerability.

The full report of this assessment survey will be shared by @PREPARED_EA

Article compiled and written by Janet C Achora