Having embarked on the path of sustainable development and having to deal with an ever-changing climate, global economies must increasingly rely on climate services to manage the risks they incur. According to a recent report by the Overseas Development Institute, this is particularly true on the African continent, where many national economies and the livelihoods of millions of people depend on agriculture. Unlike in Europe, African agriculture is predominantly dependent on rainfall, making it particularly vulnerable to climate variability. Droughts, floods, irregular rainfall, soil erosion and poor crop yields are frequent in African countries and generate food insecurity and poverty, pushing the population and the various economic sectors to come to terms with climate variability and its trends when making decisions.
However, to manage these unknowns and lower the risks to individuals and households, without halting the development of infrastructure and industries, it is necessary to have access to services that provide reliable, real-time climate information. Access to quality information across Africa remains insufficient, particularly in sub-Saharan countries. According to research conducted in Ghana, this gap is due to the fact that national meteorological and hydrological services use “insufficient, ineffective and obsolete telecommunications networks and […] hindering the efficient transmission of observations and products, especially in rural areas.” In other studies, it has been observed that much of the research and commitment to the provision and use of climate services, especially for the African agricultural sector, has remained at the experimental stage.
Markus Jansen 
Agnita Meijer