Enhancing national climate services: How systems thinking can accelerate locally led adaptation

Abstract

Making agriculture resilient to the trends and shocks of a changing and varying climate requires effective use of climate information. However, in many places around the world, collection of climate data has been seriously inadequate and, even when available, poorly accessible, of inconsistent quality, and divorced from foundational capacity building that underpins its use by decision makers at all levels. The Enhancing National Climate Services (ENACTS) initiative of the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), Columbia University (US) has been intentional about addressing these challenges holistically through its recognition that national meteorological services can and should do more than merely produce climate data. In this perspective, we highlight two recent projects in East Africa that acknowledged ENACTS early as one component in a broader climate services ecosystem. In doing so, we illustrate how the social, political, institutional, and cultural systems surrounding climate information can be just as important as the data themselves in setting up lasting yet adaptive climate services. Making agriculture resilient to the trends and shocks of a changing and varying climate requires effective use of climate information. However, in many places around the world, collection of climate data has been seriously inadequate and, even when available, poorly accessible, of inconsistent quality, and divorced from foundational capacity building that underpins its use by decision makers at all levels. The Enhancing National Climate Services (ENACTS) initiative of the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), Columbia University (US) has been intentional about addressing these challenges holistically through its recognition that national meteorological services can and should do more than merely produce climate data. In this perspective, we highlight two recent projects in East Africa that acknowledged ENACTS early as one component in a broader climate services ecosystem. In doing so, we illustrate how the social, political, institutional, and cultural systems surrounding climate information can be just as important as the data themselves in setting up lasting yet adaptive climate services. Climate change is expected to impede and undo development gains by increasing the frequency and severity of extreme events, shifting suitability zones for crops and diseases, and endangering coastal areas with sea level rise.1IPCCClimate change 2014: synthesis report.in: Core Writing Team Pachauri R.K. Meyer L.A. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. IPCC, 2014: 151Google Scholar These events threaten essential sectors, such as agriculture, forestry, water resources, tourism, transportation, energy, and health. Because 80% of the world's cultivated land is rainfed and contributes to about 60% of the total crop production,2World Water Assessment ProgrammeThe United Nations World Water Development Report 3: Water in a Changing World. UNESCO, 2009Google Scholar however, agriculture is widely regarded as the most climate-sensitive human activity. Changing precipitation patterns, including droughts, threaten both the food security and livelihoods of millions of farmers around the world who rely on rainfall for their production, as well as an increasingly urbanizing population, which also depends upon these crops for basic sustenance. In areas like Africa, which are the most affected by such climatic changes but possess the least adaptive capacity to manage the associated risks,3African Development BankClimate change in Africa [Internet].in: Afr. Dev. Bank - Build. Today Better Afr. Tomorrow. African Development Bank Group, 2019https://www.afdb.org/en/cop25/climate-change-africaGoogle Scholar solutions to mitigate the negative effects of climate change and variability and adapt to anticipated changes are in particular and dire need. Climate services, defined by the Climate Services Partnership (2021) as “production, translation, transfer, and use of climate knowledge and information in climate-informed decision making and climate-smart policy and planning,” aim to meet this need by supporting adaptation at all levels of society. Toward this end, the growing literature on climate services4Buontempo C. Hanlon H.M. Bruno Soares M. Christel I. Soubeyroux J.-M. Viel C. Calmanti S. Bosi L. Falloon P. Palin E. et al.What have we learnt from EUPORIAS climate service prototypes?.Clim. Serv. 2018; 9: 21-32https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cliser.2017.06.003Crossref Scopus (37) Google Scholar, 5Buontempo C. Hewitt C. EUPORIAS and the development of climate services.Clim. 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Cucchietti F. Calvo L. Stefaner M. Buontempo C. Introducing design in the development of effective climate services.Clim. Serv. 2018; 9: 111-121https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cliser.2017.06.002Crossref Scopus (38) Google Scholar,13Cash D.W. Clark W.C. Alcock F. Dickson N.M. Eckley N. Guston D.H. Jäger J. Mitchell R. Knowledge systems for sustainable development.Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U S A. 2003; 100: 8086-8091Crossref PubMed Scopus (2076) Google Scholar, 14Hansen J.W. Mason S.J. Sun L. Tall A. Review of seasonal climate forecasting for agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa.Exp. Agric. 2011; 47: 205-240https://doi.org/10.1017/S0014479710000876Crossref Scopus (180) Google Scholar, 15McNie E.C. Delivering climate services: organizational strategies and approaches for producing useful climate-science information.Weather Clim. Soc. 2013; 5: 14-26https://doi.org/10.1175/WCAS-D-11-00034.1Crossref Scopus (107) Google Scholar, 16Tall A. Hansen J. Jay A. Campbell B. Kinyangi J. Aggarwal P.K. Zougmoré R. Scaling up Climate Services for Farmers: Mission Possible. Learning from Good Practice in Africa and South Asia. CCAFS Report No. 13. CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), 2014https://hdl.handle.net/10568/42445Google Scholar and systems to support its efficient delivery.6Christel I. Hemment D. Bojovic D. Cucchietti F. Calvo L. Stefaner M. Buontempo C. Introducing design in the development of effective climate services.Clim. Serv. 2018; 9: 111-121https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cliser.2017.06.002Crossref Scopus (38) Google Scholar In simple terms, climate services should provide “useful” climate information to help decision makers, including those at the highest levels (such as policy makers or government officials) all the way down to those at the most grassroots level (such as farmers or pastoralists), adapt to a changing climate. At their core, they necessitate a systems approach. However, in practice, such an approach is not always adhered to, and the generation of high-quality climate information is often prioritized to the detriment of other important steps for ensuring useful climate services. The Enhancing National Climate Services (ENACTS) initiative of the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), Columbia University (US), is one effort that has addressed climate data gaps by introducing a methodology to blend rainfall and temperature observations collected by national weather services with freely available global products derived from satellite data. Beyond this, however, it has been intentional in ensuring these data are transformed and tailored into actionable and decision-relevant information for a wide variety of users, in making this information freely accessible, and in promoting the broad dissemination, appropriate communication, and capacity building that underpin its ultimate effectiveness.17Nsengiyumva G. Dinku T. Cousin R. Khomyakov I. Vadillo A. Faniriantsoa R. Grossi A. Transforming access to and use of climate information products derived from remote sensing and in situ observations.Remote Sens. Multidisciplinary Digital. 2021; 13: 4721https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13224721Crossref Scopus (2) Google Scholar This holistic approach to improving the availability, access, and use of climate information that moves beyond the generation of mere data to acknowledging the human and social systems of which it is a part has been key for both the scalability and sustainability of the initiative. Moreover, it has been foundational in ensuring climate services are locally led. In what follows, we highlight two recent projects in East Africa that recognized ENACTS early as one component in a broader climate services ecosystem and dedicated significant resources to translating, propagating, communicating, and building capacity around the climate information that emerged from the initiative. In doing so, we illustrate how the social, political, institutional, and cultural systems surrounding climate information can be just as important as the data themselves and why setting up supportive and enabling partnerships and architecture is essential for lasting yet adaptive climate services. An important mechanism for ensuring the usefulness of climate information is the process of co-production (see Figure 1). Instead of a one-way push of scientific information to users, co-production involves a two-way iterative and collaborative process of knowledge construction between those who generate climate information and those who use it.18Vincent K. Daly M. Scannell C. Leathes B. What can climate services learn from theory and practice of co-production?.Clim. Serv. 2018; 12: 48-58https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cliser.2018.11.001Crossref Scopus (85) Google Scholar In other words, merely providing or making climate information available is not sufficient. Beyond information, climate services “provide people and organizations with timely, tailored climate-related knowledge and information that they can use to reduce climate-related losses and enhance benefits”19Vaughan C. Dessai S. Climate services for society: origins, institutional arrangements, and design elements for an evaluation framework.Wires Clim. Change. 2014; 5: 587-603https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.290Crossref Scopus (227) Google Scholar (emphasis added). However, even when researchers or meteorological agencies strive to produce information that users need, significant barriers may still remain that inhibit that useful information from actually being usable.15McNie E.C. Delivering climate services: organizational strategies and approaches for producing useful climate-science information.Weather Clim. Soc. 2013; 5: 14-26https://doi.org/10.1175/WCAS-D-11-00034.1Crossref Scopus (107) Google Scholar,18Vincent K. Daly M. Scannell C. Leathes B. What can climate services learn from theory and practice of co-production?.Clim. Serv. 2018; 12: 48-58https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cliser.2018.11.001Crossref Scopus (85) Google Scholar The way theoretically useful information is transformed into sector- and decision-relevant knowledge (translated) and communicated to users (transferred) and the degree to which the user has the capacity to actually understand and act on the information (use) all affect whether and the degree to which the information enables climate adaptation (see Figure 2). Failure to consider this wider scope of climate information communication, delivery, and user capacities has often resulted in information that, although potentially useful, is not actually usable or even used by decision makers.21Dilling L. Lemos M.C. Creating usable science: opportunities and constraints for climate knowledge use and their implications for science policy.Glob. Environ. 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The neglected heart of science policy: reconciling supply of and demand for science.Environ. Sci. Policy. 2007; 10: 5-16https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2006.10.001Crossref Scopus (402) Google Scholar As such, in practice, consideration of all four pillars of climate services and a move beyond mere co-generation or co-production (the first pillar of climate services) are essential for services that are useful, usable, and used for climate risk management. In addition to how climate services relate and respond to users' needs, and also important in climate risk management due to the nature of risks that often span multiple and diverse sectors simultaneously, is how climate services relate to and can reinforce each other. Although information can be tailored and made useful and usable for one sector or decision maker using the pillars approach described above, for instance, that does not preclude it from being useful and usable for other sectors. In contrast, an ecosystem of climate services, whereby common solutions can be shared across different sectors with shared aims and where links and interactions with non-climate-related solutions can be made, can improve resilience to crises and lend efficiency and value by optimally orchestrating available solutions.26Goddard L. González Romero R. Muñoz A. Acharya N. Baethgen W. Blumenthal B. Braun M. Campos D. Chourio X. Cousin R. et al.Climate services ecosystems in times of COVID-19.World Meteorol. Organ Bull. 2020; 69: 39-46Google Scholar The information and products derived from the ENACTS approach and data, for example, are available and valuable not only to the food security and agricultural sectors but also to the water-resource management, health, energy, and disaster-risk reduction and management sectors with which they intersect. As such, a shared collection of climate services with applicability to more than one sector can provide a more robust system to manage risks and shocks.26Goddard L. González Romero R. Muñoz A. Acharya N. Baethgen W. Blumenthal B. Braun M. Campos D. Chourio X. Cousin R. et al.Climate services ecosystems in times of COVID-19.World Meteorol. Organ Bull. 2020; 69: 39-46Google Scholar To emphasize the other three pillars of climate services is not to underplay the importance of generating high-quality climate information. Availability of robust climate data is a critical first step in planning for, and managing, the risks of climate variability and change. However, it must also be accompanied by measures to ensure equitable access and effective use of climate information and knowledge. In many parts of Africa, agencies—in particular, the National Meteorological Services (NMS)—which are mandated with collecting and providing weather, water, and climate information, struggle to do so as a result of long-term under-investment, a narrow commercial base, inadequate resource models, and even civil unrest (see Figure 3), among other reasons.27Dinku T. Thomson M.C. Cousin R. Corral J. Ceccato P. Hansen J. Connor S. Enhancing national climate services (ENACTS) for development in Africa.Clim. Dev. 2018; 10: 664-672https://doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2017.1405784Crossref Scopus (28) Google Scholar The case of Rwanda provides perhaps the most poignant example of civil unrest. The civil war and genocide that devastated the country in 1994, including its meteorological observation system, led to a gap in the weather record of almost 15 years.28Dinku T. Chapter 7 - challenges with availability and quality of climate data in Africa.in: Melesse A.M. Abtew W. Senay G. 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The ENACTS approach, which aims to improve the availability, access, and use of climate information for enhanced climate services for national and local decision making, addresses this foundational data quantity and quality gap in the 22 countries where it has been launched (see Figure 4). Through its development of a merging method of on-the-ground station data with satellite rainfall estimates and climate model reanalysis products, ENACTS enables countries to fill temporal and spatial gaps in the observational record, while ensuring quality control of rainfall and temperature observations.27Dinku T. Thomson M.C. Cousin R. Corral J. Ceccato P. Hansen J. Connor S. Enhancing national climate services (ENACTS) for development in Africa.Clim. Dev. 2018; 10: 664-672https://doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2017.1405784Crossref Scopus (28) Google Scholar In the aforementioned example of Rwanda, these methods have allowed the reconstruction of missing rainfall and temperature data to shed light on climatological patterns over the last 30 years.30Siebert A. Dinku T. Vuguziga F. Twahirwa A. Kagabo D.M. delCorral J. Robertson A. Evaluation of ENACTS-Rwanda: a new multi-decade, high-resolution rainfall and temperature data set—climatology.Int. J. Climatol. 2019; 39: 3104-3120https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.6010Crossref Scopus (7) Google Scholar Because historical climate data are important for helping scientists predict future conditions and manage climate risk, it is difficult to overstate the significance of ENACTS in increasing the availability of climate information in the developing countries where the initiative is active. However, moving beyond availability to address issues of access and use (see Figure 5) is what truly establishes the relevance of ENACTS toward national and local decision making for climate adaptation and transforms useful information into services that are actually both usable and used. In other words, improving availability of quality climate data and information is necessary but not sufficient in the development of effective, decision-relevant, sustainable, and locally led climate services. Simply putting high-quality information into the world does not automatically ensure it is easily accessed, understood, or able to be used.32Nkiaka E. Taylor A. Dougill A.J. Antwi-Agyei P. Fournier N. Bosire E.N. Konte O. Lawal K.A. Mutai B. Mwangi E. et al.Identifying user needs for weather and climate services to enhance resilience to climate shocks in sub-Saharan Africa.Environ. Res. Lett. 2019; 14: 123003Crossref Scopus (32) Google Scholar, 33Photiadou C. Arheimer B. Bosshard T. Capell R. Elenius M. Gallo I. Gyllensvärd F. Klehmet K. Little L. Ribeiro I. et al.Designing a climate service for planning climate actions in vulnerable countries..Atmosphere. Multidisciplinary. 2021; 12: 121https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos12010121Crossref Google Scholar, 34Vincent K. Dougill A.J. Dixon J.L. Stringer L.C. Cull T. Identifying climate services needs for national planning: insights from Malawi.Clim. Policy. 2017; 17: 189-202https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2015.1075374Crossref Scopus (49) Google Scholar Rather, intentional efforts to both promote the translation (contextualization) and transfer (communication) of this information alongside capacity building for its use are needed. For ENACTS, a major part of facilitating the access and wider use of climate information in decision making by governments, as well as in the public and private sectors, has been the co-creation of climate information products tailored to the requirements of different users, whether they be at the local, national, or international level. A key platform for supporting this has been the IRI's Climate Data Library (https://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu/index.html?Set-Language=en), which is a powerful and freely accessible online platform that allows users to view, analyze, download, and share hundreds of terabytes of multidisciplinary climate-related data through a standard web browser.35Blumenthal M.B. Bell M. del Corral J. Cousin R. Khomyakov I. IRI Data Library: enhancing accessibility of climate knowledge.Earth Perspect. 2014; 1: 19https://doi.org/10.1186/2194-6434-1-19Crossref Google Scholar Information and communications technology (ICT) solutions like this, and especially co-created map visualizations,36Amarnath G. Simons G.W.H. Alahacoon N. Smakhtin V. Sharma B. Gismalla Y. Mohammed Y. Andriessen M.C.M. Using smart ICT to provide weather and water information to smallholders in Africa: the case of the Gash River Basin, Sudan.Clim. Risk Manag. 2018; 22: 52-66Crossref Scopus (15) Google Scholar such as the IRI's interactive maproom visuals and graphs of climate data (exemplified in Figure 6), can play a large role in making climate information more usable by translating past, present, or future conditions into expected impacts and management advisories for different decision makers.6Christel I. Hemment D. Bojovic D. Cucchietti F. Calvo L. Stefaner M. Buontempo C. Introducing design in the development of effective climate services.Clim. Serv. 2018; 9: 111-121https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cliser.2017.06.002Crossref Scopus (38) Google Scholar,8Daron J.D. Lorenz S. Wolski P. Blamey R.C. Jack C. Interpreting climate data visualisations to inform adaptation decisions.Clim. Risk Manag. 2015; 10: 17-26https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crm.2015.06.007Crossref Scopus (30) Google Scholar It is important to note that such co-production processes are neither mere one-time consultations with users nor just opportunities for feedback on products but rather iterative interactions that establish relationships, trust, and ongoing conversations between producers and users toward developing services that are usable, useful, and likely to be used.6Christel I. Hemment D. Bojovic D. Cucchietti F. Calvo L. Stefaner M. Buontempo C. Introducing design in the development of effective climate services.Clim. Serv. 2018; 9: 111-121https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cliser.2017.06.002Crossref Scopus (38) Google Scholar,18Vincent K. Daly M. Scannell C. Leathes B. What can climate services learn from theory and practice of co-production?.Clim. Serv. 2018; 12: 48-58https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cliser.2018.11.001Crossref Scopus (85) Google Scholar,37Hansen J. Kagabo D.M. Nsengiyumva G. Can rural climate services meet context-specific needs, and still be scalable?.UCT Libr. 2019; https://openbooks.uct.ac.za/uct/catalog/view/AF18/27/964-1Google Scholar As a testament to this point, a review of empirical evidence on the use of climate science, focusing on forecast use over two decades, found that climate science usability is a function of both the context of potential use and of the process of scientific production itself and that nearly every case of successful use of climate knowledge has involved some kind of iteration between knowledge producers and users.21Dilling L. Lemos M.C. Creating usable science: opportunities and constraints for climate knowledge use and their implications for science policy.Glob. Environ. Change. 2011; 21: 680-689https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2010.11.006Crossref Scopus (622) Google Scholar Beyond this process-focused, human-centered, and decision-relevant approach to minimize mismatch between what scientists might think is useful and what is actually usable in practice, the ENACTS initiative also promotes use of climate service products through awareness-raising activities, targeted capacity building, and sustained engagement with the user community. In what follows, we highlight two different contexts in which the ENACTS initiative was implemented to underscore and make more concrete the importance of all four pillars in the development of climate services, as well as to share specific mechanisms and approaches that have been demonstrated to improve the efficacy, relevance, scalability, and sustainability of those services. The capacity building and strategic partnership undertaken through the Kenya-based Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Climate Prediction and Application Centre (ICPAC) and the recently concluded Weather and Climate Information Services for Africa (WISER) program (2015–2020) underscore the importance of moving beyond the generation of good data or products to acknowledging the human, institutional, and social systems of which they are a part when promoting effective climate services. In particular, the case exemplifies how use can be accelerated through integration with local and regional networks and the impact that targeted capacity building can have toward not only the extension of existing climate services but also sustaining the co-production of new products and relationships to meet continuously evolving needs. The WISER program was started by the UK's Department for International Development (now the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office) in 2015 with a mission to improve the quality, accessibility, and use of weather and climate information services at all levels of decision making for sustainable development in Africa.38UK Met OfficeWeather and Climate Information Services for Africa (WISER) [Internet]. Met Off., 2021https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/what/working-with-other-organisations/international/projects/wiserGoogle Scholar,39United Nations Economic Commission for AfricaThe Weather and Climate Information Services for Africa (WISER) [Internet].https://www.uneca.org/WISERDate: 2021Google Scholar Toward these ends, the IRI, where the ENACTS initiative was initiated, has worked with ICPAC since 2016 to promote the ENACTS approach at the East Africa regional level and extend it to member countries in the Greater Horn of Africa.29Res. Outreach.ENACTS: risk, resilience, and the revitalisation of climate services in the developing world [Internet].Res. Outreach. 2020; https://researchoutreach.org/articles/enacts-risk-resilience-revitalisation-climate-services-developing-world/PubMed Google Scholar Improving the availability of quality climate information through a combination of quality-controlled national meteorological observations with global climate observations was a key component for the member states involved with the initiative. However, it was the capacity building around understanding and even the process of co-developing the maproom visualizations of climate data themselves that enabled such decision-relevant information and the co-production processes behind them to spread as quickly as they did across East Africa. As a baseline for discussion and example of what is possible to jump-start the co-design process with national meteorological services and their users, maproom products were co-developed in-house at the IRI with consultation between climate scientists and sectoral experts (users), such as those in the fields of agriculture and health. These first iterations of these products were developed in-house before further discussions with national meteorological services and users of particular countries due to the “you don't know what you don't know” paradox, whereby users can have difficulty articulating their needs if they are unaware of what is feasible in the technological realm. The initial maprooms developed through IRI and its sectoral experts served as jumping-off points fo