Institutionalising co-production of weather and climate services: learning from the African SWIFT and ForPAc projects

There is growing recognition of the multiple benefits of co-production for forecast producers, researchers and users in terms of increasing understanding of the skill, decision-relevance, uptake and use of forecasts. This policy brief identifies lessons learnt from two operational research projects, African SWIFT and ForPAc, on pathways for embedding co-production into operational weather and climate services as the new standard operational procedure. Experiences across these projects identifies the following potential pathways for institutionalising co-production practises within operational weather and climate services: • Changing mindsets and systems to enable co-production of enhanced forecasts and systematic approaches for their use. • Strengthening in-country institutional links between operational forecasting centres and academic institutions to develop sustainable and improved forecasting capacities to meet users’ evolving weather and climate information needs. • Ensuring continued access to raw forecast data from global forecasting centres to continue and further develop new and improved decision-relevant forecasts. • Formalising user engagement in co-production, through agreeing standard and continuity of representation and commitment to providing regular feedback. • Mainstreaming stakeholder engagement and co-production in meteorological training, forecasting operations and environmental research. • Working through existing channels, such as agricultural and livestock extension services, and harnessing social media and remote ways of working to develop sustainable forms of continuous user engagement. • Establishing monitoring systems to demonstrate the benefits of investing in forecasting capacities. • Incentivising collaboration between complementary initiatives. • Addressing the risks of operationalising new and improved weather and climate services in resource- constrained environments.