Increasing vulnerability due to climate change requires cross-sectoral management of the territories with bottom-up approaches based on active community participation. Climate change intensifies territorial risk and impacts severely on human migration and displacement, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Avoiding maladaptation associated to internal migration as well as to other adaptation actions which do not adopt a nexus approach (e.g. water-food-energy nexus) requires effective planning and management of migration hot spots. At the same time, it calls for more integrated strategies which simultaneously support sustainable development growth pathways and climate resilience development in the African context. ALBATROSS aims at addressing these challenges by delivering novel, innovative and decision making-relevant tools and knowledge which will support the adoption of feasible, effective, and sustainable need-based adaptation strategies into AF policies and programs. It will do that by co-creating climate services and tools which will enable the weighting of compound and cascading impacts (benefits and threats) on ecosystem health, food security, socio-economic vulnerability while addressing specific natural hazards (e.g., drought or flood) or sectoral climate adaptation needs (e.g., agriculture) through nature-based solutions (NBS) and other climate adaptation measures. The methodological approach of ALBATROSS will be tested ad validated in different Sub-Saharan countries, leading to the co-creation and co-evaluation with key stakeholders of need-based adaptions options and plans. By combining participatory approaches with fundamental research grounded on the latest generation of observational data and modelling techniques, ALBATROSS will provide robust and science-based evidence on the degree at which NBS may perform as multifunctional adaptation strategy for counteracting forced migration, biodiversity loss and hydrometeorological risk in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Natural hazards, such as extreme weather events, are exacerbated by climate change. As a result, emergency responses are becoming more protracted, expensive, frequent, and stretching limited available resources. This is especially apparent in rapidly warming regions. MedEWSa addresses these challenges by providing novel solutions to ensure timely, precise, and actionable impact and finance forecasting, and early warning systems (EWS) that support the rapid deployment of first responders to vulnerable areas. Specifically, MedEWSa will deliver a sophisticated, comprehensive, and innovative pan-European–Mediterranean–African solution comprising a range of complementary services. Building on existing tools MedEWSa will develop a fully integrated impact-based multi-hazard EWS. This call contained five expected outcomes, all of which will be specifically addressed by MedEWSa. Led by WMO, MedEWSa will be an exemplar of the UN Secretary General’s March 2022 call to ensure that everyone on Earth is protected from extreme weather and climate-related hazards by EWS within the next five years. Through eight carefully selected pilot sites (areas in Europe, the southern Mediterranean, and Africa with a history of being impacted by natural hazards and extreme events with cascading effects), four twins will be created: ● Twin #1: Greece (Attica) – Ethiopia (National Parks): wildfires and extreme weather events (droughts, wind) ● Twin #2: Italy (Venice) – Egypt (Alexandria / Nile Delta): coastal floods and storm surges ● Twin #3: Slovakia (Kosice) – Georgia (Tbilisi): floods and landslides ● Twin #4: Spain (Catalonia) – Sweden (countrywide): heatwaves, droughts and wildfires. The twins will bridge areas with different climatic/physiographic conditions, yet subject to similar hazards, and are well positioned to deliver long-term bi-directional knowledge transfer. They will demonstrate the transferability and versatility of the tools developed in MedEWSa.