CONFER is a multi-national collaboration to bolster resilience to climate impacts and reduce disaster risk in East Africa, potentially reaching 365 million people in eleven countries. Our main objective is to co-develop dedicated climate services for the water, energy and food security sectors with stakeholders and end-users, to enhance their ability to plan for and adapt to seasonal climate fluctuations. The scientific work in CONFER is ambitious and aims to break new ground along three inter-related tracks. First, we will secure end-user engagement by using the Greater Horn of Africa Climate Outlook Fora, which are held three times per year and attract about 200 stakeholders, as platforms for co-production of new and dedicated climate services for our focus sectors. By fostering a two-way dialogue between our scientists and a large group of stakeholders and end-users, we will create enthusiasm and raise awareness to ensure that the value of our new science and products is fully realized by those who need them the most. Second, we will improve on the accuracy and local detail of numerical prediction model outputs for East Africa, with a particular focus on seasonal prediction. Third, we will develop statistical and machine learning tools to obtain a new level of seasonal forecast skill based on numerical models and high-resolution satellite data. We will also involve our scientific experts in a large training and capacity development programme designed to enhance climate information uptake in our focus sectors. Our research and outreach address important IPCC topics, the sustainable development goals, and the expected impacts in the call for proposals. We will aim to influence policymaking through frequent interaction with stakeholders at the climate outlook fora, by publishing policy briefs, and by organizing an open conference on climate services in Africa.

“Today, one third of the world’s people, mainly in least developed countries and small island developing states, are still not covered by early warning systems... This is unacceptable, particularly with climate impacts sure to get even worse. Early warnings and action save lives. To that end, today I announce the United Nations will spearhead new action to ensure every person on Earth is protected by early warning systems within five years.” - UN Secretary-General António Guterres on World Meteorological Day 2022/03/23 The ambition of the Strengthening Extreme Events Detection for Floods and Droughts (SEED-FD) project proposal is to give Europe, with the Copernicus Emergency Management Service, a leading position with this regard by breaking the current limitations of hydrological simulation accuracy and reliability and providing skillful floods and droughts forecasts available anywhere in the world, including in the global south for lower and middle-income countries, typically the most impacted by extreme hydrological events but also where the current knowledge gap in hydrological simulation and forecasting is highest. Combining state-of-the-art science with crucial advances in EO and non-EO technologies, the project's global objective is to enhance the quality and portfolio of the CEMS EWS for floods and droughts and improve the reliability of predictions all over the world. SEED-FD will target every critical part of the CEMS Hydrological Forecasting Modelling chain by applying state-of-the-art science to transform new observational information into high-quality hydrometeo extreme event forecast products. It will invest in better representing hydrological processes and parameterisation techniques of the CEMS core hydrological engine (LISFLOOD) and combine the model enhancements with innovative techniques to integrate EO and non-EO data with the near real-time hydrological processing chain for reducing hydrological forecasting errors.

ACACIA is an ambitious interdisciplinary alliance to enhance the resilience of at-risk communities in Sub-Saharan Africa to climate impacts. Focusing on floods in the Greater Horn of Africa and floods and tropical cyclones in Madagascar, we seek to improve the ways climate services are produced, disseminated and used for making short-term and long-term decisions to diminish climate risk. Our strategy is to mitigate five obstacles to climate adaptation: 1) Temporal and spatial mismatches and lack of relevance of climate services; 2) Capacity to implement coping strategies and access to climate services; 3) Governance barriers, including fragmentation of responsibility; 4) Climate change, which can make existing coping strategies obsolete; 5) Lack of evidence on the socioeconomic impacts of climate services. Our consortium is highly multidisciplinary. Social science is strongly represented in our cross-cutting co-production activities, which involve working with peer communities consisting of actors from multiple sectors including policymakers, and community work with 100 vulnerable villages in Madagascar. Our rigorous assessment of the added value of climate services-based interventions in these villages will also be led by social scientists. Climate scientists will steer the co-production of national and regional operational early warning systems and work to enhance the skill of a subseasonal forecast model system. All the partners will be involved in an extensive training and capacity-building programme, which targets vulnerable communities, consortium members including national and regional meteorological services. Our consortium has 14 partners, with strong representation from Africa. It involves actors from all parts of the climate services ecosystem. The reason for mobilising such a broad alliance is to ensure that services and protocols are developed locally, which enables our outcomes to be sustained beyond the lifetime of ACACIA.