Next week, 18th to 22nd November 2019, Scientists and Forecasters from SWIFT partner Universities, and National and Regional Meteorological Services will gather in Ngong, Kenya for the start of the sub-seasonal testbed. During the week Scientists and Forecasters from Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal and the UK, together with the Forecast Users from Cameron, Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria, will discuss the potential for co-producing new weather forecast products with Users to aid their sub-seasonal decision-making.
Part of Strand 2, the African-SWIFT project’s sub-seasonal testbed is a two-year process lead by NCAS and ICPAC, to co-produce more useful weather forecasts for 1-4 weeks into the future. The aim of the testbed is for the African-SWIFT Scientists to work directly with their Users before starting to make the products, so that the forecasts are providing tailored information to the Users. This process is particularly unique as the African-SWIFT Scientists and the Users of forecast information will work in close collaboration, throughout the next two years, to co-create useful products for decision-making processes with the potential to be used across tropical Africa.
The co-production approach has six main building blocks starting with the i) identification of key actors and building partnerships followed by a process of ii) building common ground understanding, reaching to the stages of iii) co-explore needs, iv) co-develop solutions and v) co-deliver those solutions to Users, ending with the vi) evaluation phase. This is an iterative process which will be started at the kick-off meeting and continue through the 2-year testbed