WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANIZATION

______

REPORT OF

INFORMAL PLANNING MEETING OF THE

VOLUNTARY COOPERATION PROGRAMME

Hamburg, Germany

15-17 April 2015

  1. OPENING OF THE MEETING

1.1.The Informal Planning Meeting (IPM) of the Voluntary Cooperation Programme (VCP) met in Hamburg, Germany 15-17 April 2015. The IPM was hosted by the German Weather Service (DWD).

1.2.The meeting was chaired by Mr Francisco (Paco) Espejo (AEMET) and attended by representatives of China, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, Republic of Korea,Spain, Norway, United Kingdom,United States of America and theVCP and GCOS Secretariat. Other invited participants included COMET, EUMETSAT (via phone) and GIZ.The full list of participants is given in Annex I.

The opening addresswasdelivered byDr Thomas Bruns, manager of the DWD Branch Office in Hamburg and Head of the Division for Marine Meteorological Services. Dr Burns gave the participants an overview of the history of the DWD branch in Hamburg, the “Seewetteramt” specializing in marine meteorology and gathering data from ships. Today the branch works as a regional forecasting centre with a specialization in marine and the old building housing it, dating back to 1905.

On behalf of WMO, the Secretary General and Ms Mary Power, Mr Jeff Wilson thanked DWD and the Seewetteramt for hosting the IPM, underlining that WMO sees the opportunity that the network provides as very useful to support and promote developing activities for NMHS.

The IPM Chair, Mr Espejo, welcomed all participants and shared his expectations forthe meeting emphasising the planning aspect of the agenda. Mr Espejo also underlined the importance of this meeting and how it is a useful arena for the met services that have bilateral development projects to share experiences and knowledge on the development projects that are not channelled through the Secretariat.

2.ADOPTION OF THE AGENDA

2.1.The meeting adopted the agenda. The agenda isgiven in Annex II.

  1. REPORT OF THE VCP AND VCP COORDINATED ACTIVITIES 2013

3.1.The meeting was informed of the activities being supported at the national level in developing and least developed countries under the Voluntary Cooperation Programme, through the Secretariat through the VCP Fund (F) and through coordinated activities ofthe VCP Equipment and Services (ES) function.

3.2.In 2014, the VCP Secretariat received eleven requests for support from nine countries. Of these five were supported through the VCP-F as they fitted within the VCP-F guidelines. From the remaining requests, one was covered through another WMO Development programme (GFCS: Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction in Africa), and four were circulated directly among the potential donors and IPM members through VCP (ES) Coordinated process. Of those circulated two projects will be supported through VCP Coordinated. Overall, 70 % of all new requests were given a positive response. The unsupported projects were outside the financial frame of WMO VCP projects. The countries that received support through VCP (F) were Bosnia and Herzegovina, Fiji, Paraguay, Trinidad and Tobago and Tuvalu.

In total5 requests remain unmet at the end of 2014 (3 from 2014 and 2 from 2013).

Four members made cash contributions to the VCP Fund (VCP (F)) amounting to USD42,500.In addition to major regional development projects described below, approximatelyUSD32,576,212equivalent in support was provided through the VCPoverall. This was comprised of USD227,000 from the VCP (F) and the remaining through bilateral support.Full details are provided inAnnex III.

The trends in contributions to VCP (F) and VCP (ES) over the past six years indicate a decrease in funds for the VCP as managed through the secretariat at the same time as project support through major development projects in WMO and through bilateral support is increasing.

  1. REPORT ON REGIONAL HYDROMET MODERNIZATION AND GFCS PROJECTS

4.1.The Secretariat provided an overview of the significant developmentsupport being financed and coordinated through the WMO Office for Resource Mobilization and Development Partnerships (RMDP), the Regional Offices and Technical Departments in respect of regional programmes for capacity development of NMHS in Africa, South Eastern Europe, South and Central Asia, Pacific, Middle East, Caribbean, Polar and Himalayas and the Americas.

4.2.These are supported by WMO Members mainly through the NMHS and / or their ODA Agencies and include Canada, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, UK and USA. Additional institutional partners include EU (various Directorates), World Bank, Regional Development Banks and UN system partners as WFP, WHO and others (Annex V). Most of recent regional development projects being implemented by WMO Secretariat support the implementation of the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS) in the key priority sectors (Agriculture and Food Security, Disaster Risk Reduction, Water, Health).

4.3.On average development cooperation project income at WMO Secretariat amounts to about USD 32 Million for 2014in addition to almost the same amount to all VCP related investments by the WMO Secretariat and IPM Members. It is worth noting that many of WMO regional development projects have a focus on Africa and greatly contribute to the objectives set out in the Integrated African Strategy on Meteorology (Weather and Climate Services) adopted in 2012 by the African Ministerial Conference on Meteorology (AMCOMET).

4.4.The interest in investing in weather, water and climate services is clearly increasing with many partner agencies also investing directly including WB, UNDP-GEF.WMO position in the development agenda is best suited to innovation and pilot / demonstration projects and then working with other UN agencies as both partners and end-users of climate services.

4.5.The IPM members shared information on a broad range of development assistance being provided through bi-lateral means by Donor Members to improve the delivery of climate, weather and water related service in developing country member states. The presentations included the efforts of China, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, Norway, Republic of Korea, Spain, United Kingdom and United States of America as well as EUMETSAT and COMET. The full details of these activities are provided inAnnex IV.

4.6.The Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) Implementation Manager presented the GCOS programme and the development cooperation activities conducted through GCOS in 2014. He highlighted that through GCOS, low value orders can mend important gaps, and that the costs often increase when investments to restore and maintain smaller equipment is not done in a timely manner. Maintenance costs when investing in new equipment should be built in for at least three years.

4.7.The chair opened discussion to the group based on the presentations made by the Donor Members, especially in relation to the challenges and opportunities theyare facing while implementing development projects. The presentations show that the members sometimes have overlapping interests, either in terms of geography or topics. It would be beneficial to some of the programmes if there were greater synergies between the countries. An overview showing the development activities taking place in each country will be provided by the Secretariat.

4.8.The discussions that followed the presentations on WMO major regional development projects and IPM Member bilateral projects highlighted the following: i) Donor coordination on national level in countries where more than one development project is taking place ii) The importance of the NMHS in developing countries having their strategic plan in place before embarking on bigger development projects iii) The importance of training of staff iv) Building in maintenance where there is investment in equipment.

  1. EDUCATION AND TRAINING

5.1.WMO Global Campus

Since the last IPM there has been significant progress on the concept of the Global Campus with UKMO’s secondment of Aileen Semple to the WMO Secretariat.

WMO has 27 RTCs and several WMO affiliated institutions. However, there is still a gap in the demand and the supply of training. The Global Campus is aimed at reducing this gap and improving access to training resources for NMHS staff and trainees in a cost and delivery efficient manner. The steering committee for the Global Campus was established in December 2014 and the RTC directors meeting in Langen, Germany in March 2015 agreed and recommended what the focus areas should be for the next phase: a Global Searchable Calendar, Aviation Competencies in multiple languages and Climate Services – building on aviation experiences. The Global Campus gives a good opportunity to be working together and to see if there is another training provider giving the needed course already.

EUMETSAT

Mark Higgins joined the IPM via telephone to give an introduction to EUMETSAT’s provision of satellite data for weather and climate services. EUMETSATs mandate in addition to cover the needs of its 30 members and 1 contributing state has been extended to also include other European countries, RA I, the Middle East of RA II and RA III and the rest of the world. EUMETSAT provides applications of data in: Severe Weather and Nowcasting; Marine; Land; Climate; Dust and Hydrology. On a global level they support training design for large capacity building projects while in Europe, Africa and the Middle East they provide classroom and online training. These training modules are available globally with a target audience in Europe. There is a strong need for services that are beyond the mandate of EUMETSAT, such as training in Marine Services, training in Climate Services and training in NWP.

GIZ – Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammearbeit

The German Agency for Development Cooperation, GIZ, is owned by the Federal Republic of Germany at the same time as it is a company under federal law. Their approach is focused on services to manage social change processes. The GIZ underlines that Climate Change issues have rapidly gained importance and a further increase in number of project related to climate change is expected with the highest concentration of climate change projects in Sub-Saharan Africa. The outreach of GIZ programmes for Adaptation, Mainstreaming and Climate Information covers countries that are also benefitting from IPM members such as India, Vietnam, Peru, the Philippines and Pacific Islands. The challenges that are faced in the implementation relate to climate information illiteracy including how beneficiaries of the projects deal with uncertainty in future climate scenarios. GIZ is also involved in restoring historical climate data in Indonesia.

GIZ shared the experience from the cooperation between GIZ and DWD,where DWD contributes with competence in state-of-the art meteorology and climatology and have the right skill set and networks while GIZ has in-depth knowledge on the organizational procedures, knowledge about the sectors and long-term presence in developing countries.

Paul Egerton, WMO Liaison Office New York,

Mr. Egerton updated the IPM on the ongoing process with Sustainable Development Goals where Goal 13,14,15 and 6 are the most relevant to WMO. It is also noted that WMO is becoming more relevant to these processes. It is important that the messages about weather and climate get repeated through the delegates and diplomats at the Missions in New York.

Green Climate Fund (GCF)

Mr. Jean-Paul Gaudechoux from WMO updated the IPM on the progress of the Green Climate Fund. The pledges made to the Green Climate Fund amounts to USD 10,2 billion (as of mid-April 2015), nevertheless, the only country that had to date made the full contribution is Denmark. The process for accreditation is underway and the first seven entities were accredited in March 2015 during the 9th Green Climate Fund Board Meeting. WMO has applied to become an accredited entity and the application is currently being reviewed by the GCF Secretariat before being submitted to an independent accreditation panel for consideration by the 10th Green Climate Fund Board Meeting in early July 2015.

  1. DISCUSSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
  • The discussion about how the NMHS and national development agencies can increase cooperation continues from last year.
  • Development agencies working with climate change programmes, such as GIZ, can tap into the knowledge and experiences of their NMHS to develop products that are useful at project level.
  • A percentage of incoming VCP requests can be met through ongoing development projects either administered through WMO or through bilateral projects. However, it is important to have funds available in the VCP trust fund that are not earmarked for specific projects or countries to meet VCP requests that fall outside the major project countries
  • Proposal to have in country coordination meetings for countries in which several IPM members have projects (such as Myanmar, Madagascar, Vietnam). It was discussed whether it would be beneficial to have one lead in countries where several NMHS implement development programmes.
  • The importance of the NMHS in developing countries having their strategic plan in place before embarking on bigger development projects was emphasized and WMO has a major role to play in this.
  • How to create sustainable results? In hardware there is a need to build in maintenance costs into the project investment. The importance of the training component in development projects.. Training needs to come before the supply of instruments and needs to be hands-on.
  • The projects need to highlight the importance of maintenance, calibration and spare parts. If the correct maintenance work is applied, the investment will last much longer. Moreover, in the analysis of the supply of hardware it is important to take into account the availability and cost of spare parts.
  • Service Delivery: the experience of FMI shows that it is beneficial to approach the end-user to identify the correct partner for service delivery. An example is from Malawi where both FMI and WMO have good experiences in partnering with the Red Cross for Disaster Risk Reduction programmes. NGOs with presence on the ground in developing countries might have a much better outreach than the NMHS alone.
  • Socio-Economic Benefit (SEB) studies; there is an increasing interest for SEB studies of investments made in weather, water and climate. These studies are also highly beneficial in discussions with donors for future projects.
  • The networking that is resulting from the IPM is critical and facilitates cooperation between the members
  • The IPM is a valuable, well-functioning network
  • As a follow up to the 2014 session in parallel with the EC panel on Education and Training, it was agreed that the IPM will take place in parallel with the panel every second panel, meaning that the next joint meeting will take place in 2018.

Decisions for the next IPM

  • It should be considered if the template for the reporting to the IPM should be changed before the next meeting
  • Timely submission of reports will allow for issues from the reports to feed into the agenda of the IPM
  • It was discussed whether there should be breakout groups during the IPM to coordinate for countries in which several met services have presence. An option would be to present case studies and open for discussion
  • IPM members are encouraged to share their written experiences of implementing projects.
  • An informal drafting committee for best practices was established. The members of this groups are
  • Dan Beardsley
  • Antti Hyvärinen
  • Paco Espejo
  • Bruce Muller
  • VCP secretariat

There will be a side event for VCP during the Cg XXVII organized by WMO Secretariat. The event will take on Wednesday 3 June,

  1. DATE AND PLACE OF THE NEXT IPM MEETING

7.1.Next meeting will take place in March/April 2016. Venue and exact dates to be decided.

Annex I

WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANIZATION

______

INFORMAL PLANNING MEETING OF THE

VOLUNTARY COOPERATION PROGRAMME

Hamburg, Germany

15-17 April 2015

IPM/2015/Doc. 1

______

ITEM: 1

Original: ENGLISH

Participant List

Mr Zhou HENG
Department of International Cooperation
China Meteorological Agency
46, Zhongguancun Nandajie
Beijing 100081, China
Tel: +86 10 68406242
Fax: +86 10 62174797
Email: / Ms Claudia RUBART
Office of the President and International Affairs,
Deutscher Wetterdienst
Frankfurter Strasse 135
D-63067 Offenbach
Germany
Tel.:+49 69 8062 4309
Fax:+49 69 8062 4130
Email:
Mr Takuya HOSOMI
Office of International Affairs
Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA)
Phone:+81-3-3211-4966
Fax:+81-3-3211-2032
Email: / Mr Mingu DO
International Cooperation Division
Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA),
Tel.: + 82 2 2181 0372
Email:
Mr Steve MANKTELOW / Mr Tor Ivar MATHISEN
International Relations / Program Manager/Aviation Forecaster
UK Met Office / Met Norway
Phone: +44 (0) 1392 886633 / Phone: +47 229963000
Fax: + 44 (0) 1392 885681 / Fax: + 47 22963050
Email: / Email:
Mr Francisco ESPEJO GIL
State Meteorological Agency (AEMET)
Spain
Tel.:+34 91 5819 683 (RPV: 39683)
Fax:+ 34 91 5819 896
Email: / Mr Quoc-Phi DUONG
Advisor on WMO Matters
Department of International Affairs
Météo-France
Tel.:+33 (0)1 77 94 70 57
Email:
Mr Antti HYVÄRINEN, Ph.D
Senior Research Scientist,
Head of Group: International Projects, Expert Services,
Finnish Meteorological Institute,
phone:+358 405152004
fax:+358 29 539 4129
Email: / Mr Dan BEARDSLEY
NOAA/National Weather Service
International Activities Office
National Weather Service
USA
Tel: +1 301-427-9041
Fax:
Email:
WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANIZATION
______
INFORMAL PLANNING MEETING
VOLUNTARY COOPERATION PROGRAMME
HAMBURG, GERMANY
15-17 APRIL 2015 / IPM/2015/Doc. 2
ITEM 2.1
Original: ENGLISH

REPORTED BILATERAL TECHNICAL COOPERATION ACTIVITIES IN 2013

(Submitted by WMO Members)

Summary and Purpose of Document