The 50th Greater Horn of Africa Climate Outlook Forum (GHACOF50) is set to be held on 27th and 28th August 2018 in Kigali.
The Government of Rwanda through the Rwanda Meteorology Agency will host the forum that IGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC) organises in collaboration with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) in the region.
The two-day forum will bring together climate scientists, researchers, decision-makers and users from key socio-economic sectors, governmental and non-governmental organizations, development partners and the civil society among other stakeholders under the theme of Promoting Gender-Sensitive Weather and Climate Services.
The participants are expected to review lessons and experiences from the use of the products provided in the previous climate outlook and develop consensus regional seasonal climate outlook for the coming months of October to December 2018.
They will also formulate mitigation strategies to the implications of consensus regional climate outlook on the key socio-economic sectors in the region and understand the gender-specific impacts of climate, i.e. user needs and service provision strategies for gender-sensitive climate services.
In addition, ICPAC will be celebrating 20 years of holding these regional climate outlook forums, as well as launch of an atlas on climatic risks and food security in the region.
In 1996, WMO in collaboration with NMHSs and other regional institutions, as well as other international organizations organised the first Regional Climate Outlook Forum (RCOF) in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. RCOFs gained momentum as a regional response to the major 1997–1998 El Niño event.
ICPAC, formerly known as Drought Monitoring Centre (DMC), organized the first GHACOF in Nairobi, Kenya, for the March to May (MAM) 1998 rainfall season in February 1998. The main goal of RCOFs is to provide consensus regional seasonal climate outlooks for applications in key socio-economic sectors in support of resilience building for sustainable development.
The Fiftieth Greater Horn of Africa Climate Outlook Forum (GHACOF50) will be convened with financial support of WMO, the African Development Bank, the World Bank, the United Kingdom Aid and the United States Agency for International Development.