Director General of ACMAD

I am excited about the opportunity as well as the challenges of leading the African Center of Meteorological Applications for Development (ACMAD). After many years working with end-users (small-holder farmers, fishers, pastoralists, local decision-makers, the private sector, etc.) on delivering climate information services through a multidisciplinary approach, I have come to appreciate the depth and various facets of the task. I will keep learning about and promoting good practices in Africa and the Global South. It is now a pleasure to work on scaling up and leveraging these efforts at the continental level by documenting the continent’s best practices and facilitating knowledge exchange between Africa’s various regions for sustainability.

Africa is a highly vulnerable environment with limited infrastructural, financial and other resources. In this era of climate change, the continent should rely on anticipation as its most effective adaptation strategy.

We recently witnessed the impacts of Cyclone Chido in the Southwest Indian Ocean. This demonstrates how important and urgent it is to provide weather and climate information at the right time and scale, through the right partnerships and channels.

Our ambition is to raise ACMAD to a Centre of Excellence where state-of-the-art climate science and new technologies, including artificial intelligence, will be used for seamless climate prediction—from a few hours to decades. Through strong collaboration, this will lead to tailored climate information that informs decisions at every temporal and spatial scale.

This requires dedicated and well-trained personnel, up-to-date equipment and strong collaboration. We will reach our goal by building strong partnerships among all stakeholders, including beneficiaries, the private sector, climate and social scientists, communication experts and decision-makers.

As a continental centre, we will ensure that no community is left behind in accessing climate information, capacity-building opportunities and documented good practices. We will systematically document climate initiatives conducted across Africa and map these efforts at the continental level so that we can tailor our work and act efficiently. Public-private sector collaboration, gender considerations and access to information for all will be priorities. We will promote a cascading communication chain to facilitate the dissemination of information from its source to the final users.

I assure you of our commitment to supporting tailored climate service delivery and working with our partners to make our continent more resilient to climate hazards. ACMAD will play a pivotal role in achieving this mandate.