Building a Framework for Process-Oriented Evaluation of Regional Climate Outlook Forums

Gerlak, Andrea K.; Guido, Zack; Vaughan, Catherine; Rountree, Valerie; Greene, Christina; Liverman, Diana; Trotman, Adrian; Mahon, Roché; Cox, S.; Mason, Simon J.; Jacobs, Katharine L.; Buizer, James L.; Meerbeeck, Cédric J. Van; Baethgen, Walter E.

doi:10.1175/wcas-d-17-0029.1

Cited by 23 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Three years later, the public visibility of a strong El Niño event (1997/1998) prompted a surge of field research on the potential use and value of seasonal forecasting for Africa, with a particular focus on smallholder agriculture. Coincidentally, Regional Climate Outlook Forums (RCOFs) were initiated in Southern, East and West Africa the same year, though planning had been initiated before the El Niño event was anticipated (Gerlak et al, 2018).…”

Section: Agricultural Wcs In Africamentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating agricultural weather and climate services in Africa: Evidence, methods, and a learning agenda

Vaughan¹,

Hansen²,

Roudier

et al. 2019

WIREs Climate Change

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Weather and climate services (WCS) are expected to improve the capacity of Africa's agricultural sector to manage the risks of climate variability and change. Despite this, a lack of evidence prevents a realistic analysis of whether such services are delivering on their potential. This paper reviews 66 studies that have evaluated outcomes and/or impacts of agricultural WCS in Africa, highlighting areas that have received relatively more attention as well as persistent gaps. While the evaluation of WCS outcomes is relatively straightforward, estimates of the number of people who access and use these services are uneven (covering a small number of communities in 23 of 54 African countries) and highly variable (with access estimates ranging from ~2 to 86%, depending on the service and the population). Meanwhile, 22 documents estimate the impact of WCS with respect to yields and/or income. Developed with a variety of methods, these estimates are also wide ranging and illustrate how impact is conditioned on a number of characteristics of the service, the user, and the context in which both operate. The paper uses lessons developed through this review to develop a “learning agenda,” or evidence‐building roadmap, to establish priorities that can guide work to improve the design, delivery, and impact of agricultural WCS in Africa. Priority learning areas include activities that can strengthen the evidence of access, use, and impacts of WCS, along with those that can advance the use and usability of evidence so as to improve the design and targeting of WCS services. This article is categorized under: Assessing Impacts of Climate Change > Evaluating Future Impacts of Climate Change Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change > Learning from Cases and Analogies

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Section: Agricultural Wcs In Africamentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating agricultural weather and climate services in Africa: Evidence, methods, and a learning agenda

Vaughan¹,

Hansen²,

Roudier

et al. 2019

WIREs Climate Change

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“…To bring together national, regional, and international climate experts, the WMO, NMHSs, regional institutions, and other international organizations initiated an approach of Regional Climate Outlook Forums (RCOFs) in the late 1990s to produce consolidated regional climate outlooks based on climate predictions through expert assessment in several different regions of the world (Buizer et al 2000;Ogallo et al 2008;Gerlak et al 2018). The early RCOFS were primarily focused on seasonal time scales as modulated by El Niño-Southern Oscillation events and were not yet focused on longer-term variations and changes.…”

Section: E242mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Responding to this question requires the monitoring and evaluation of the socioeconomic costs and benefits of climate services, a practice that is complex and is not currently widely undertaken. Nascent efforts have been engaged to evaluate different components of climate services (Gerlak et al 2018) but more needs to be done to evaluate alignment and effectiveness across all aspects of service design, implementation, and feedback for learning and improvements in services.…”

Section: E248mentioning

confidence: 99%

Making Society Climate Resilient: International Progress under the Global Framework for Climate Services

Hewitt

Allis

Mason³

et al. 2020

Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

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There is growing awareness among governments, businesses, and the general public of risks arising from changes to our climate on time scales from months through to decades. Some climatic changes could be unprecedented in their harmful socioeconomic impacts, while others with adequate forewarning and planning could offer benefits. There is therefore a pressing need for decision-makers, including policy-makers, to have access to and to use high-quality, accessible, relevant, and credible climate information about the past, present, and future to help make better-informed decisions and policies. We refer to the provision and use of such information as climate services. Established programs of research and operational activities are improving observations and climate monitoring, our understanding of climate processes, climate variability and change, and predictions and projections of the future climate. Delivering climate information (including data and knowledge) in a way that is usable and useful for decision-makers has had less attention, and society has yet to optimally benefit from the available information. While weather services routinely help weather-sensitive decision-making, similar services for decisions on longer time scales are less well established. Many organizations are now actively developing climate services, and a growing number of decision-makers are keen to benefit from such services. This article describes progress made over the past decade developing, delivering, and using climate services, in particular from the worldwide effort galvanizing around the Global Framework for Climate Services under the coordination of UN agencies. The article highlights challenges in making further progress and proposes potential new directions to address such challenges.

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“…The Global Framework for Climate Services Adaptation Programme in Africa (GFCS APA) is a multi-agency joined effort programme that is implemented under the umbrella of the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS) and funded by the government of Norway through the ministry of foreign affairs. The main objective of the programme is enhancing the resilience of the most vulnerable communities to the adverse impacts of climate variability and change, through promoting the use of climate services at all levels particularly in the priority areas of agriculture and food security, disaster risk reduction, energy, health and water resource management [6] [7]. In Africa the GFCS APA is implemented in Tanzania and Malawi whereby, phase 1 of the programme was implemented from 2014 to 2016 and Phase II of the programme started in 2016 and will close in 2019.…”

Section: The Global Framework For Climate Services Adaptation Programmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Contribution of the Global Framework for Climate Services Adaptation Programme in Africa (GFCS APA) in National Adaptation Plan (NAP) Process for Tanzania

Luhunga¹,

Kidebwana²,

Kijazi³

et al. 2019

ACS

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This article assesses the contribution of the Global Framework for Climate Services Adaptation Programme in Africa (GFCS APA) in the National Adaptation Plan (NAP) process for Tanzania. Different research project outputs (field survey and workshop reports) produced during the implementation of GFCS APA are reviewed to assess the contribution of GFCS APA programme in the establishment and implementation of NAP process in Tanzania. It is found that the implementation of GFCS-APA programme in Tanzania has improved the availability, accessibility, and applicability of climate information to different stakeholders. This has in turn attributed to significant use of climate information in planning and decision making in target sectors: agriculture and food security, disaster risk reduction, energy, health and water resource management. This has increased the adaptation capacity of vulnerable communities from the impacts of climate variability and change. Furthermore, it is evident that the aims and objectives of establishments of NAP process in Tanzania have been addressed through implementation of GFCS APA Programme. Moreover, since the GFCS APA in Tanzania is implemented within its five pillars namely: observation and monitoring, research, modeling and prediction, climate information systems, user interface platform and capacity development. The achievement made in each pillar contributed in enhancement of resilience of vulnerable communities to climate variability and change hence addressing the aims and objectives of NAP process in Tanzania. Therefore, it is recommended that achievements of GFCS APA Programme in Tanzania to be used as a guide to the development How to cite this paper:

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Building a Framework for Process-Oriented Evaluation of Regional Climate Outlook Forums

Cited by 23 publications

References 40 publications

Evaluating agricultural weather and climate services in Africa: Evidence, methods, and a learning agenda

Evaluating agricultural weather and climate services in Africa: Evidence, methods, and a learning agenda

Making Society Climate Resilient: International Progress under the Global Framework for Climate Services

The Contribution of the Global Framework for Climate Services Adaptation Programme in Africa (GFCS APA) in National Adaptation Plan (NAP) Process for Tanzania

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