Report on the Climate Services Developed and the Steps Taken in their Co-Development

The Co-production of Climate Services for East Africa (CONFER) process for co-development of climate services started in September 2021 and ended in September 2024. The objective of the CONFER project was to co-develop dedicated climate services for the water, energy, and food security sectors – based on co-production methods and advances in numerical modeling and statistics – with stakeholders and end-users in East Africa to enhance their ability to plan for and adapt to seasonal climate fluctuations.  Work Package 1 aimed to scope the landscape of knowledge and climate services in the GHA, enhance existing products and feedback channels, and facilitate the co-production of new climate services in the region. The key objectives of this deliverable were to gain a better understanding of climate information needs and to develop bespoke climate services to address those needs. The focus was on co-developing new and dedicated climate services for the water, energy, and food security sectors through a co-production approach with the stakeholders and end-users and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC), a regional climate services center based in Nairobi, Kenya. To meet the main objective of the deliverable, the three co-production modes of mapping, making, and measuring were employed.

The co-production mode of mapping involved the use of the two tools: literature review; and engagement of the stakeholders in priority sectors in the Great Horn of Africa Climate Outlook Forums (GHACOFs) to establish the landscape of the climate services in the region. Some of the challenges identified included: project-based climate services; barriers to the usability of ICPAC’s climate products and services and improvement needed; current use and needs for climate products and services; and training and capacity building needs. This formed the basis of the co-designing of the climate services and next co-production mode.

The deliberation and reflexibility tools were used in the co-production making mode to engage stakeholders and end-users to diagnose the challenges of integrating climate service into their contexts, converge their ideas on new climate services to be developed, suggest adjustments that are required in the framing of the co-production work as well as ensuring trust and credibility of the process and support participatory valuations. This involved co-identifying products to be enhanced, co-identifying and selecting with the stakeholders/end-users the new climate services to be developed and testing and co-evaluating the products and climate services. The criteria of the selection was premised on the feasibility, state of maturity and spatial scale.

The multidisciplinary work streams were established to co-produce 10-day and seasonal streamflow forecasts under hydrological modelling; onset and cessation of seasonal forecasts; and machine learning model for NDVI under crop modelling. The measuring mode of co-production provided platforms for assessing 10-day and seasonal streamflow forecasts; onset and cessation of seasonal forecasts; machine learning forecasting system for NDVI; as well as their potential transferability to other end-users within the sector and region. Workshops were held to engage users from many sectors in providing feedback on the use, transferability, and scale of the co-developed climate services.