Report – Capacity Needs Assessment of ACMAD

This capacity needs assessment of the African Centre of Meteorological Applications for Development (ACMAD) was conducted under the framework partnership of the African Ministerial Conference on Meteorology (AMCOMET), the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID) – Weather and climate Information SERvices (WISER) programme, and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)/
the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS) to support identification of ACMAD’s major challenges in order to provide entry points for technical support and services intervention to improve the ability of the centre to deliver relevant climate services to the African National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) and the humanitarian sector in the continent.

ACMAD as an institution has faced human and financial constraints in a number of areas, and that has undermined its capability in the provision and delivery of climate services mandated to the Centre. Hence, the requirement of this study is to assess key human and technical skills as well as infrastructural, institutional and governance, fiscal and legal, communication and outreach capacity needs in order to help ACMAD improve its development, delivery, and uptake of key weather and climate products and services. The assessment is also designed to provide recommendations on how to adequately address the key gaps identified, including priority areas of intervention.