Since 2020, the three EU Horizon 2020 ‘sister projects’ FOCUS-Africa, DOWN2EARTH and CONFER have been working together to create new and improve existing climate services for eastern and southern Africa. We will present examples and best practices on how to build the climate services based on users needs. These include supporting and expanding the East Africa Hazards Watch, a map-based tool for disseminating updated forecasts and warnings which has been developed at ICPAC, the regional climate services center for the Greater Horn. FOCUS-Africa is developing demonstrators of the full value chain of climate services for energy, food security, water and infrastructure, in Tanzania, Malawi, South Africa, Mozambique and Mauritius, including the socio-economic benefit analysis of the services. Further, we will summarize some key scientific findings, which include a better understanding of the linkages between tropical ocean temperatures and rainfall. We will also present our training, communication and capacity building work. This includes a free and open Massive Open Online Course on climate journalism, policy briefs, a series of podcasts and webinars, and a large number of training events targeting weather and climate professionals in the region.
Name of organizing project/institution: CONFER and FOCUS-Africa (EU Horizon 2020 projects)
Organizer: Erik Kolstad - NORCE Norwegian Research Centre, Norway; Roberta Boscolo - World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Switzerland; Michael Bliss - UC Santa Barbara, USA
Targeted audience: Scientists, stakeholders, and policy-makers