CICLES - Customized and Integrated Climate Services for Improved Resilience and Sustainable Socio-Economic Development in West Africa
Despite the growing understanding of the climate and its potential impacts on society, climate information is still not routinely valuable for decision making. A mechanism is needed that connects the relevant climate science to decisions that build resilience to climate change and variability. Several institutions are active in a piecemeal delivery of Climate Environmental Services (CES) in selected sectors such as weather information, food security, and environmental monitoring. Besides the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services or Agencies, several climate service projects or have been operating at existing institutions, or in some cases the institutions themselves were involved in delivering climate information. Mainly, these institutions provide information services that are offered in a generic setting; redundant among institutions in some cases that neither allow easy integration nor broad enough to answer user-specific needs in sectors such as disaster risk reduction, migration, and climate change mitigation. It is, therefore, paramount to develop and deliver climate services that will promote resilience to climate change and variability at national and regional levels in West Africa.
The BMBF-funded CICLES project aims to create tailored and integrated climate services to improve resilience and sustainable socio-economic development in West Africa, and specifically addresses user needs and the new challenges posed by regional perspectives. The overall goal objective of CICLES is to provide information, engineering solutions, policy guidance, and knowledge to support resilience, sustainable development, and improve livelihoods in the region. Five different services are designed, demonstrated, and disseminated to bring together human skills and expertise, financial investments, digital tools, and training to improve risk prone nations’ adaptive capacity and resilience to global warming and climate change:
1. Data Storage and Computing Services
2. Timely Information on Extreme Climate Events
3. Migration under Natural Hazard
4. Climate Policies and Actions
5. Scientific Exchanges, Training and Vocational Courses
In this project, the Climate Service Center Germany (GERICS) collaborates with the WASCAL Competence Center (WASCAL-CoC) to develop three tailored prototype climate fact sheets on future single and compound climate extremes and a set of prototype spatial maps of population exposure to these events in West Africa. An important aspect of this project is to co-develop and co-design prototype products with stakeholders to meet their needs. Another objective is to strengthen human capacity building in the climate service sector in West Africa. To this end, regular, needs-oriented training courses are organized and implemented together with the WASCAL-CoC. Regular staff exchange visits between GERICS and WASCAL-CoC are also planned to share scientific knowledge.
CICLES is a joint project between the WASCAL Competence Center in Ouagadougou/Burkina Faso and the Climate Service Center Germany (GERICS) in Hamburg/Germany to support the transformation and a sustainable socio-economic development in West Africa.