The Climate Services Partnership: Creating Resources for Climate Services Development Worldwide Stephen E. Zebiak International Research Institute for Climate and Society Earth Institute at Columbia University

2 Informal, interdisciplinary partnership (200+) working to improve climate services development and provision Focused on creating knowledge/information resources, fostering collaborations to establish and improve on good practices Created in 2011 at first International Conference on Climate Services (ICCS1) Organization: Coordinating Group International office The Climate Services Partnership

Participation in CSP/ICCS process

Knowledge Capture and Exchange: Interactive database of current climate services activities – what, where – theme/sector, institutions – business model, governance, … Case studies (joint with GFCS): – basic information – experiences, lessons learned, opportunities for improvement (40+ identified) Assessments: – facilitated, independent analysis; address costs/benefits; gaps; opportunities – Mali agromet program, India agricultural climate services first subjects

Case Studies All regions (most in Africa) Subnational to regional; 2 global Weather to climate change timescales (most seasonal to interannual)

Capacity gaps Challenges in communicating information Challenges in link between users and providers Lack of capacity on part of provider Funding Data

Case study analysis: Four lessons Human capacity is key and requires continuous investment Bridging & tailoring takes time Working with existing infrastructure can be extremely effective Climate services should be part of a larger risk management strategy

Some other CSP activities Evaluation – phase II – new methodology (modest investment), ~10 studies planned Economic valuation of climate services – Literature review, guidance document (book) Review of climate services guidance/training material Climate service mapping activity (with EU/JPI-Climate, CSC) CSP Knowledge Exchange (webinars/e-discussion forum) Scaling up climate services for farmers in Africa and S. Asia (with CCAFS)

ICCS3: Montego Bay, Jamaica! December 4-6, 2013 Ideas: Drought and related climate services Coastal management/adaptation – Coral reefs Insurance and climate risk management Health and climate – dengue,.. Climate services ethics Prioritizing research for supporting climate services CSP activities and results Side events, training sessions, etc. ICCS 2 – Brussels, Sept 2012

Get Involved!

Four lessons about process User perspective is difficult to capture Hard to define success Have to create an environment in which people are comfortable talking about their failures Institutional analysis is lacking