How African Nations Are Helping to Build Stronger Weather Warning Services

Tanzania’s experience illustrated the importance of giving those plans a firm institutional base through legislation, standard operating procedures and access to technical, policy and operational discussions.

A weather warning needs more than accurate forecasting to make a difference in people's lives: the service issuing it needs trained staff, reliable funding and a clear role in national decisions. A recent World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Technical Coordination Initiative learning session brought together the Permanent Representatives of Tanzania and Seychelles, with contributions from other members, including Mozambique, to explore how countries can help one another build those foundations. Their experiences showed how sharing practical knowledge can meet immediate technical needs and strengthen the institutions responsible for weather, water and climate information.

Building a Service Starts With People, Planning and Clear Authority

The Seychelles Meteorological Authority (SMA) shared how connecting its National Strategic Plan with business and human resources planning has helped it identify priority services, the people needed to deliver them and the resources required to keep them running. Clearly defined priorities, supported by cost estimates, give governments and development partners a more useful picture of where investment is needed, helping projects and partnerships contribute to a shared national direction. That preparation gives cooperation between countries a practical starting point, because a service can explain its needs and identify another member with relevant experience.

Tanzania's experience illustrated the importance of giving those plans a firm institutional base through legislation, standard operating procedures and access to technical, policy and operational discussions. The Tanzania Meteorological Authority (TMA) has legal recognition as the authoritative source of weather forecasts and warnings, and its place on the national Disaster Management Council connects its expertise with preparedness decisions. Its legislation provides options for raising resources to support operations. Countries developing similar arrangements can draw on Tanzania's experience, including practical lessons that formal guidance may not capture about putting institutional changes into everyday use.

Reliable Services Need Funding and Skills That Take Time to Build

Predictable funding remains essential for national meteorological and hydrological services (NMHSs), and recovering costs through services tailored to different sectors can help broaden their income and demonstrate their value. Establishing those arrangements takes sustained preparation, including suitable legislation, commercial and technical expertise, staff competencies, a credible Quality Management System and ISO certification where appropriate. Close relationships with the sectors using these services are essential, because an institution needs to understand what its customers require before it can develop reliable offerings that support cost recovery.

Cooperation between Tanzania and Seychelles has put this approach into practice, with TMA helping SMA strengthen its Quality Management System and develop the competencies needed to provide dependable services and pursue cost-recovery opportunities. Seychelles is becoming better placed to share its experience with other members, showing how support can grow beyond the original partnership. Members at different stages of development can exchange lessons on legislation, quality management and financing, with each institution's progress creating knowledge that others can use. These relationships gain value from first-hand experience and an understanding of the working conditions national services face.

Connecting National Progress With a Stronger Global Network

Stronger national services can contribute more effectively to preparedness, development and operational decisions, build closer relationships with governments and other partners, and supply observations, data, expertise and services to regional and global systems. Those contributions improve the information available across the WMO community and strengthen collective forecasting capabilities and its authoritative voice. Seychelles highlighted the value of a central mechanism to track projects entering the country, identify duplication, align investment with national priorities and address gaps across the four pillars of Early Warnings for All. WMO has a role in securing NMHS involvement in relevant regional and global initiatives, with external assistance reinforcing national institutions.

Mozambique's Permanent Representative, Adérito Aramuge, highlighted cooperation options ranging from institutional twinning and joint projects to expert exchanges, study visits, training, webinars, regional programmes and regional-centre support. Webinars offer rapid knowledge sharing; visits and exchanges provide tailored learning; sustained partnerships support institutional development. The WMO Regional Office for Africa is examining how these approaches respond to members' varied needs and capacities. WMO plans to enable, expand and share this work through regional programmes, projects, the Voluntary Cooperation Programme, regional centres and technical and institutional partnerships. Support driven by members' own priorities can turn shared experience into affordable, sustainable capacity and trusted relationships that endure beyond individual projects.