19 April 2016: The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the World Bank’s Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) convened a roundtable on ‘Strengthening Hydrometeorological Services for Sustainable Development.’ The event brought together over 50 high-level representatives of development agencies and weather and hydrological services, who supported improved coordination measures among donors at the national level, including: country-level modernization plans for national meteorological and hydrological services; development partners forums; and better indicator use to assess progress on services.

The roundtable took place from 13-14 April 2016, in Geneva, Switzerland. Participants called for increased investment in hydrometeorological (hydromet) services, early warning systems and climate services as growing exposure to weather and water-related hazards are compounded by climate change, urbanization and population increases. They supported transparent information exchange through such mechanisms as the WMO Country Profile Database, which pools information on national hydromet services.

According to WMO, while some donors target hydromet service modernization, investments thus far have been insufficient. WMO also notes that short-term, project-level interventions, which often focus on the provision of observing equipment, neglect institutional and human capacity building and sustainability issues.

Addressing the roundtable, WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas emphasized the important role hydromet service providers play in combating climate change and achieving sustainable development. Francis Ghesquiere, GFDRR Head, lamented that communities that escape poverty are often pushed back into it due to extreme events, such as droughts and heatwaves. To attract more investment, Ghesquiere emphasized the importance of “transforming hydromet services into service providers” in such sectors as agriculture, energy and civil protection.

According to the World Bank, hydromet services will increase productivity by approximately US$30 billion, and improved early warning systems will save about US$2 billion. For its part, the World Bank has invested or is planning to invest approximately US$500 million in such services, which will bring access to better early warning systems to another 100 million people in 15 developing countries. The roundtable is the first in a series of planned high-level dialogues. [WMO Press Release] [Roundtable Website] [Roundtable Agenda]