A number of side events will be associated with ICCS 5; a schedule and information regarding how to get around UCT are included below. Registration is strongly encouraged.
Monday, February 27
Co-developing climate services: Brokering climate knowledge from scientists to decision makers and back
Time: 13:00 – 17:00
Location: University of Cape Town, Environmental & Geographical Science Building, Studio/Seminar 1
Session leads: Florian Bauer (REEEP/CKB), Fiona Percy (CARE ALP)
Knowledge intermediaries and brokers play an essential role in ensuring that climate information is co-produced, collectively interpreted and communicated in ways that ensure it is relevant and decision-ready over time.
The objective of this side event is to show the crucial and varied roles that climate knowledge brokers play (on purpose or by accident) at many points along every climate knowledge value chain, and to demonstrate a methodology to collectively develop climate services which enable adaptation and resilience decision making by vulnerable communities, local governments and development actors.
Participants, representing a range of different stakeholders, will dissect a climate knowledge value chain to determine where the need for climate services is most stringent, and design a climate service which can contribute to enhancing resilience.
To register, please contact Sigmund Kluckner.
Climate services evaluation — methodological review workshop
Time: 9:00 – 17:00
Location: University of Cape Town, Environmental & Geographical Science Building, Studio 3
Session leads: Jim Hansen (IRI, CCAFS), Cathy Vaughan (IRI)
This workshop is being held in conjunction with the USAID I.LEARN.CIS project, with the goal of reviewing recent work to evaluate climate services in Africa. Key evidence-related questions that are important to the climate services community include: (a) To what extent do farmers and other agricultural decision-makers access and use climate services to change their decisions? (b) How do the uses of climate services impact farmers’ livelihoods and agriculture-related development goals? (c) How do aspects of climate service design and implementation influence access, use and effectiveness (in terms of livelihood and development impact) of climate services?
The workshop will present a range of commonly used methodologies (controlled and post-hoc survey methods, econometric, willingness-to-pay, decision modeling, combined methods), and highlight the relative strengths and weaknesses of applying these methods to answer different questions in different contexts. The workshop will also provide an opportunity to identify and prioritize critical gaps in current activities, laying the groundwork for the development of a shared research agenda on the evaluation of climate services in Africa.
To register, please contact Cathy Vaughan.
Tuesday, February 28
Implementation mechanisms for the South Africa National Framework for Climate Services
Time: 12:40-1:40
Location: Lagoon Beach Hotel, Library
Session Lead: Sibonelo Mbanjwa, South Africa Department of Environmental Affairs
This event will engage with the diversity of participants at the ICCS in order to facilitate a discussion and gather input about mechanisms to implement the national framework on climate services. The session will present a brief overview of the issues involved, and then engage in open discussion to gather input, answer further questions, and document suggestions that can help inform and guide future developments.
To register, please contact: Sibonela Mbanjwa
Climate and health consortium for Africa: Making climate services more responsive to health needs
Time: 17:30-19:00
Location: Lagoon Beach Hotel, Atlantic Suite 2
Session lead: Joy Shumake-Guillemot, WHO/WMO
ClimHealthAfrica is a multi-stakeholder initiative bringing together Pan-African technical institutes and international partners to guide and strengthen the public health resilience of African countries and communities. This session will share the strategic priorities of ClimHealthAfrica and key messages from several recent user-forums and experiences in Africa in order to identify emerging issues, and guide discussion on how to make climate services more responsive to user needs in Africa. Expected outcomes will provide climate service partners recommendations how to better service and collaborate to meet health sector needs.
To register, please contact Joy Shumake-Guillemot.
Towards subseasonal-to-seasonal climate services
Time: 17:30-19:00
Location: Lagoon Beach Hotel, Library
Session leads: Ángel G. Muñoz (Princeton), Frédéric Vitart, (ECMWF) & Andrew Robertson (IRI)
Meteorological and hydrological centres around the world are looking at ways to improve their capacity to be able to produce and deliver skillful and reliable forecasts of high-impact extreme events at sub-seasonal timescales (beyond 2 weeks). Improving sub-seasonal predictions, assessing their skill and uncertainty, and exploring ways to communicate their benefits to decision-makers are significant challenges.
The over-arching theme of the session is the discussion of s2s sources of predictability, forecasts and socio-economic applications of high-impact climate services. Thus, this session invites contributions involving (but not only restricted to) physical mechanisms, statistical and dynamical model methodologies, cross-timescale interactions, Model Output Statistics, verification, uncertainty quantification and climate services involving s2s forecasts with application to water management, droughts, floods, energy and health. Participants are especially encouraged to present contributions and discuss strategies to bridge gaps between stakeholders and actionable s2s tailored products.
To register, please contact Ángel Muñoz.
Global climate services programs for climate resilient and smart development — achieving strategic synergies for implementation
Time: 17:30-19:00
Location: Lagoon Beach Hotel, Atlantic Suite 1
Session leads: Ana Bucher (World Bank) & Steve Zebiak (CIS)
The session will capture experiences and lessons learned from major international programs/initiatives investing in climate services as a basis to achieve improved adaptation, climate resilience, and sustainable development. The session will discuss how to identify success pillars and lessons learned to help close gaps encountered with current disconnected programs operating in the same settings and at different levels. Participants will help develop ideas/proposals for steps to better guide and harmonize climate service frameworks and investments that implement a value-chain approach, to empower national governments and stakeholders, and realize positive outcomes.
To register, please contact Ana Bucher.
Wednesday, March 1
What are the prospects for scaling and replicating experimental or pilot climate services in Africa?
Time: 8:00 – 9:00 am
Location: Lagoon Beach Hotel, Library
Session lead: Julio Araujo (South South North)
A working breakfast hosted by the SouthSouthNorth and the Future Climate for Africa Programme. Breakfast, tea and coffee will be served.
Currently a number of initiatives are piloting the experimental delivery of novel climate services or supporting “one off” or short-term project interventions in Africa. What are the emerging prospects for turning these experimental research / pilot interventions in Africa into delivery of wider and more sustained services?
The Future Climate for Africa programme is convening a “Working Breakfast” alongside the ICCS-5 conference at Lagoon Beach conference venue. This event will give participants an opportunity to discuss emergent challenges and opportunities at moving the delivery of climate services in various African contexts from a pilot / experimental or demonstration phase to operationalizing on a wider or more sustained scale. Presenters will share African case studies to highlight key opportunities, challenges and learning that may inform wider work, particularly with regards to the replication or scaling up of interventions. The aim is a provocative and exploratory discussion (moving beyond generic feedback) about the prospects for operationalizing climate services more widely across Africa and different strategies being explored to this end.
Panelists include:
Dr Arame Tall (GFCS)
Mr Paul Watkiss (Paul Watkiss and Associates)
Prof Prof Bruce Hewitson (CSAG)
Ms Fiona Percy (CARE International)
To register, please contact Julio Araujo.
Mapping climate services across Africa
Time: 12:40 – 1:40
Location: Lagoon Beach Hotel, Library
Session leads: Arame Tall (GFCS), Colin McQuistan (Practical Action)
Mapping stakeholders involved in the process of generating, co-producing, tailoring, communicating and evaluating user-centric climate services in Sub-Saharan Africa has become an urgent priority. Coordination among donor funded initiatives and nationally led initiatives on climate services is the single most important barrier today to the success of coordinated climate services delivery in Africa, and full GFCS implementation in the region. This important session will help to address this gap, by organizing a participatory activity that aims to physically map stakeholders according to their functional contributions to achieving the five GFCS pillars in Africa.
To register, please contact Arame Tall.
Thursday, March 2
Climate services for informing on the impacts of 2/1.5 oC
Time: 12:40 – 1:40
Location: Lagoon Beach Hotel, Library
Session lead: Joseph D. Intsiful, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
The Climate Research for Development (CR4D) side-event will bring together researchers, scientists, policy makers, high level decision makers and development partners to discuss: (i) the impact of 2deg. on critical socio-economic sectors of Africa; (ii) the unique role and contribution of CR4D to Africa’s long-term sustainable development within the context of climate change, in particular, the implementation of Africa’s Agenda 2063, Agenda 2030 and the Paris Agreement; (iii) impact of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) on trans-boundary or regional issues; and (iv) approaches for long-term resource mobilization to finance CR4D initiatives.
To register, please contact: Joseph Intsiful
Learning lessons for developing effective climate services: Insights from country-level implementation
Time: 17:30-19:00
Location: Lagoon Beach Hotel, Atlantic Suite 1
Session leads: Sukaina Bharwani (SEI) & Katiuscia Fara (WFP)
This session highlights different examples of climate services and aims to share insights from both climate services providers and users about how to improve the design, use (including access) and interpretation of climate information, and foster dialogue among providers and users. Specific focus of the session will be on challenges and lessons learnt, opportunities for sustainable provision of services including the need for institutionalise such services – for example, through capacity-building and the creation of networks, platforms and ICTs.
This event will bring together climate information providers and users to discuss new approaches for the design, use and interpretation of climate services and efforts to better integrate them with other development interventions to effectively manage climate-related risk. Drawing on the experience from country-level implementation, the event will identify what are the key elements that need to be in place for the successful co-development and dissemination of climate services. The format will be interactive, with participants invited to also share their own feedback, to foster mutual learning and find opportunities for capacity building and co-production of knowledge.
To register, please contact: Sukaina Bharwani.
Enhancing National Climate Services (ENACTS)
Time: 17:30-19:00
Location: Lagoon Beach Hotel, Library
Session leads: Madeleine Thomson, IRI
The Enhanced National Climate Services Initiative (ENACTS) supports National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) to make “fit for purpose” quality climate data available, accessible, useful, and most importantly, used by national decision-makers in Africa. The major advantage of ENACTS is that the products and services developed by the NHMSs include all their relevant quality controlled archived and monitoring station data which are then blended with the most appropriate globally climate products (either satellite or modeled data). This panel, comprising members of the ENACTS implementation and user community, sets out to present achievements to date and discuss current challenges and future opportunities.
ENACTS review and chair: Tufa Dinku
Ethiopia: Kinfe Hailemariam, Director, Meteorological Electronic Stations and ICT Directorate, National Meteorological Agency
Zambia: Edson Nkonde, Principal Meteorologist, Zambia Meteorological Department
Ghana: Kofi Asare, University of Cape Coast
Agriculture: Jim Hansen CCAFS
Local user perspective: Maurine Ambani– CARE
Health: Madeleine Thomson, International Research Institute for Climate & Society
To register, please contact Madeleine Thomson.
Friday, March 3
Inter-disciplinary research priorities for climate services to inform socio-economic development
Time: 9:30-12:30
Location: University of Cape Town, Environmental & Geographical Science Building, Studio/Seminar 1
Session leads: Joe Daron (UK Met Office), Suraje Dessai (Leeds), Coleen Vogel (Wits University)
This side event will reflect on current research, experiences of individuals and recent studies in the climate services field to highlight gaps in scientific knowledge, helping to further identify and articulate inter-disciplinary research priorities. In particular it will focus on research frontiers and priorities for those entering fields related to climate services, in natural, social and applied sciences.
To register, please contact Joe Daron.
Working roundtable for ClimHealthAfrica
Time: 9:30 – 12:30
Location: University of Cape Town, Environmental & Geographical Science Building, Studio 3
Session leads: Joy Shumake-Guillemot (GFCS)
This session will involve a focused discussion on ClimHealthAfrica, with a particular focus on agenda setting and the identification of strategic priorities. Discussion topics include:
- Update on ClimaHealthAfrica
- Recent developments in climate & health
- Progress, challenges, opportunities
- Emerging needs for emergency preparedness & management
- Next steps
To register, please contact Joy Shumake-Guillemot.
GETTING AROUND THE UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN
All side events will be held in the Environmental & Geographical Building (Block B6/7), which is part of the University’s Upper Campus.
Participants will have to check in at the Information Centre (Block E9) & report that they are planning to attend an ICCS side event in the EGS building.
Signs in the EGS building will direct participants to the appropriate rooms; with questions, or for directions, ICCS participants can also visit room 4.01 and consult with Melanie Rustin-Nefdt.
A map of the Upper Campus is below.
