The African Centre of Meteorological Applications for Development (ACMAD) and its partners are collaborating to coordinate, integrate, and harmonise approaches, tools, and products to enhance continental climate forecasting.
This initiative was highlighted during the opening ceremony of the ongoing Eighteenth African Continental Climate Outlook Forum in Accra, which is under the theme Improved Climate Services Delivery for Informed Decision Making in Africa.
The recent State of Climate Report for Africa indicates that, over the past 60 years, Africa has experienced a warming trend accelerating faster than the global average.
In 2023/2024, the continent faced a series of extreme climate events, including heatwaves, heavy rainfall, severe floods in the Sahel, tropical cyclones, and extended droughts. These extreme conditions have had devastating impacts on communities, with substantial economic repercussions.
Speaking to the media on the sidelines of the forum, a representative of ACMAD’s Director General in Niger,
Professor M. Matazu Baku provided additional insights on the subject.
“The functions here today are witnessing the tag as an African Continental Outlook forum whereby regional climate centres from the regional economics centres ECOWAS, ACRES and all the sub-regional offices in Africa are being represented by their scientific experts’ forecasting.
“So, come together to harmonize on tools and techniques and also come up with the continental level forecast of weather and planning and also interact with users to come up with advisors on how users, especially at the country level. So we are getting users coming from four sectors in Ghana, Agri World Water Resources, health and see how forecast of weather now adds value to what they are doing and how they will also adapt to the changing weather and also changing climate,” he stated.