More than 2 billion people are living in countries under water stress and 3.6 billion people face inadequate access to water at least one month per year. Meanwhile, water-related hazards have increased in frequency for the past 20 years. Since 2000, flood-related disasters have increased by 134%, and the number and duration of droughts also increased by 29%.

The state of climate report and continental outlook is becoming a flagship climate service supporting resilience and adaptation policy, plan and practice. The development planners are responsible for integrating relevant climate resilient actions in development policies, strategies, investments, or expenditure plans.

Cognizant of the impacts of water-related hazards due to climate change and the need to share information across sectors, WMO and ACMAD are organizing an engagement forum with RAI hydrological advisers across Africa with the purpose to strengthen the Water Sector User Interface Platform (WS-UIP).

UIP OBJECTIVES 

 The specific Objectives of the forum are:

✓ To establish relationships, share information on the state of climate and continental outlook;

✓ To discuss recent hydrological extremes monitoring and forecasting in Africa and how hydrologists’ contributions can improve this annual state of climate and continental outlooks;

✓ Acquiring, sharing or improving knowledge on hydrological data, in situ and satellite data sources, as well as uncertainties.

EXPECTED OUTCOMES

• The knowledge and skills useful for delivering products for the state of climate reports and other statements shared.
• skills to acquire hydrological data, process, analyze and generate products for the state of climate report for their respective regions according to the WMO methodology discussed;
• Network and partnership between climate and water experts strengthened