GFCS Dialogue Side Event:

International Research Institute, Columbia University -

Enhancing Climate Services in Africa by Improving the Availability, Access and Use of Climate Information

1 pm , Saturday 27 October

Salle 3 (Ground floor)

Objective:

To showcase the work and describe how it takes the traditional output based on point observations and transforms it into a useable set of data for other sectors such as agriculture and health to use.

To get other countries in Africa interested so the work could begin across Africa. The satellite part of the project has been done for the whole of Africa – the ground work in country now needs doing.

Overall Idea

High quality climate information and services must be based on quality-assured climate data. Such data have largely been absent in Africa where meteorological observations from weather stations are a fraction of what is considered basic cover by the World Meteorological Organization. Where records exist, they frequently suffer from data gaps and poor quality and often are not easily accessible. As a result, lack of climate data has been one of the major constraints for integrating climate into development planning and practice in Africa.

Speakers

- Tufa Dinku (Associate Research Scientist, Environmental Monitoring Program, International Research Institute for Climate and Society, The Earth Institute at Columbia University): Improving availability,access and use of climate information (10 min)
- Kinfe Hailemariam (Meteorological Instruments and ICT Directorate Director, National Meteorology Agency, Ethiopia): Implementation in Ethiopia (10min)
- Steve Connor (World Health Organization): Users perspective (10min)
- Tufa Dinku: Next steps (5min)

Further links Flyer

http://portal.iri.columbia.edu/portal/server.pt

The Map Room of the National Meteorological Agency, Ethiopia

Last Update 24-Oct-2012

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