Group photo of all the representatives at the declaration ceremony

[SatNews] The African leaders came together to agree on...

At the invitation of the Minister for Water and Energy of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, the Representatives of the African Union Commission (AUC), the Regional Economic Communities (CEMAC, ECOWAS, IOC, IGAD, SADC) and the Secretariat of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP Secretariat) Group of States, declared their support to the Addis Ababa Declaration. This was declared in the presence of the Deputy Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), and of representatives of the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the African Centre for Meteorological Applications for Development (ACMAD) and the European Union (EU).

The Addis-Ababa Declaration
  Through the Addis-Ababa Declaration, the signatories have agreed to support the development of an African regional implementation plan for the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS), which should be endorsed by an Extra-ordinary Congress of WMO later this month. The main goal of the GFCS is to enable better management of the risks of climate variability and change and adaptation to climate change, through the development and incorporation of science-based climate information and prediction into planning, policy and practice on the global, regional and national scale.

The Addis-Ababa Declaration also calls on the European Commission to support the implementation of the GFCS in Africa through its introduction as an element of the joint Africa-EU Strategy.

The stakeholders are convinced that the implementation of GFCS in Africa will further enable African institutions to contribute to, and benefit from, the results of the international cooperation efforts in the area of climate services. In particular, they will benefit through better access to knowledge and technologies in climate monitoring, prediction and projection.

During the declaration ceremony, Alain Ratier, EUMETSAT's Director-General, said: "With this declaration, Africa demonstrates its willingness for a coordinated effort to generate valuable climate information. It encourages EUMETSAT strengthening its collaboration with Africa on climate monitoring and generation of climate services."