Training on ANACIM Data and Maproom Tools Relevant to AICCRA

This report summarizes a workshop, which was held in Dakar on 10 November 2021, that introduced AICCRA-Senegal partners to Climate Maprooms, data, and other relevant tools and platforms that are available through ANACIM. Presentations covered ANACIM products and strategy for agriculture and related sectors, the ENACTS approach to strengthening national capacity to provide locally actionable climate information, and analyses of the quality of ANACIM’s gridded historical data that serve as a foundation for localized climate information products. Participants gained experience navigating and interpreting ANACIM’s existing suite of climate Maproom tools, and Next Generation seasonal forecast products that are expected to be launched for the 2022 rainfed growing season. Because the GTP includes the key national institutions that are involved in climate, agriculture and food security, the GTP portal hosted by ANACIM already has the endorsement of those institutions. Participants agreed that any online digital tools that the AICCRA project develops should be driven by demand, should build on and complement existing tools, and should be embedded in the GTP portal

Curriculum co-development to strengthen climate risk management capacity of Senegal’s agricultural extension

Strengthening the capacity of next users – particularly the amalgam of actors who comprise Senegal’s pluralistic agricultural extension system – is a crucial part of the AICCRA strategy for benefitting millions of farmers with climate information services (CIS) and climate-smart agriculture (CSA). This brief describes an ongoing process to design, develop and implement a short curriculum to strengthen the capacity of Senegal’s extension and advisory service providers to incorporate CIS into their work with farmers and agropastoralists. By strengthening human and institutional capacity to understand, communicate and apply climate information at critical points within the agricultural system, this process aims to catalyze agricultural system transformation, enhance the welfare and resilience of Senegal’s farming population, and sustain the impacts of AICCRA intervention

Institutionalising co-production of weather and climate services: learning from the African SWIFT and ForPAc projects

There is growing recognition of the multiple benefits of co-production for forecast producers, researchers and users in terms of increasing understanding of the skill, decision-relevance, uptake and use of forecasts. This policy brief identifies lessons learnt from two operational research projects, African SWIFT and ForPAc, on pathways for embedding co-production into operational weather and climate services as the new standard operational procedure. Experiences across these projects identifies the following potential pathways for institutionalising co-production practises within operational weather and climate services: • Changing mindsets and systems to enable co-production of enhanced forecasts and systematic approaches for their use. • Strengthening in-country institutional links between operational forecasting centres and academic institutions to develop sustainable and improved forecasting capacities to meet users’ evolving weather and climate information needs. • Ensuring continued access to raw forecast data from global forecasting centres to continue and further develop new and improved decision-relevant forecasts. • Formalising user engagement in co-production, through agreeing standard and continuity of representation and commitment to providing regular feedback. • Mainstreaming stakeholder engagement and co-production in meteorological training, forecasting operations and environmental research. • Working through existing channels, such as agricultural and livestock extension services, and harnessing social media and remote ways of working to develop sustainable forms of continuous user engagement. • Establishing monitoring systems to demonstrate the benefits of investing in forecasting capacities. • Incentivising collaboration between complementary initiatives. • Addressing the risks of operationalising new and improved weather and climate services in resource- constrained environments

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Senegal Capacity Development Priorities for Climate Services

The Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) project works to make climate information services and climate-smart agriculture more accessible to millions of smallholder farmers in Senegal and five other target countries). The AICCRA strategy to achieve this goal includes building the capacity of next users to use climate services and support implementation of climate-smart agriculture. Although Senegal has a strong foundation for climate services, the benefits that farming and agropastoral populations obtain from climate services could potentially be limited by insufficient capacity to understand, communicate and apply climate information within these populations and at critical points within the agricultural system, for example, the network of organizations (ANCAR, NGOs, producer organizations) that provide extension and advisory services, local GTPs, university agriculture programs, and rural communities themselves. AICCRA-Senegal held a workshop in Dakar on 9 May 2022 to inform its capacity development strategy. The workshop convened a set of stakeholders representing government, academia and NGOs to identify priority capacity gaps, and opportunities for training and curriculum to address these gaps