The West African Science Centre on Climate Change and Adaptation Land Use (WASCAL) is spearheading a Customized and Integrated Climate and Environmental Service (CICLES) for improved resilience and sustainable socio-development in West Africa.
CICLES seeks to make available products and services in the area of data services, climate exchange compound events, migration under climate hazard, climate action policy, and dialogues among other policy makers and scientists, services on the job and vocational trainings including summer schools and internships for professionals to help improve their skills, knowledge and operational practices to combating climate change, sustainable development and improve livelihoods in West Africa.
Speaking with the interim Executive Director, Prof. Kehinde Ogunjobi, in an interview after an inception workshop in Accra, he explained that the project will strengthen risk-prone nations’ adaptive capacity and resilience to global warming and climate change through the co-development of an end-to-end climate environmental services.
The project is expected to result in the operationalization of customized Climate and Environmental Service (CES) at WASCAL, interactive science-policy for action and sustainability and also established feedback loops and impact evaluations of CES for cost effectiveness and self-reliant CES for West Africa.
The project will be delivered under five pillars: data and scientific computation, timely information on extreme climate, cross boarder rural and urban migration, climate change policy and action and training.
On data and scientific computation, Prof. Ogunjobi stressed that most stakeholders including those in the financial and environmental sectors lack climate change scientific data to aid their work adding that “We are looking at supporting all these stakeholders with climate change scientific data and computation”.
He mentioned that WASCAL will provide science-based evidence and training for climate change actors to empower them to negotiate better at the international level on behalf of member countries.
We want to find solution and create innovation that will help vulnerable citizens to reduce and eliminate the impact of climate change on our societies which will improve on their livelihoods,” he emphasized.
He underscored that WASCAL is committed to significantly improving the climate change research infrastructure and maintenance capacity in West Africa,
Funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the project is expected to benefit governments, agencies, policy makers, researchers, students and regional and international audience, banks, farmer cooperatives, SME NGOs among others.
WASCAL is a large-scale research-focused climate service centre designed to help tackle climate related challenge and thereby enhance the resilience of human and environmental systems to climate change and increased variability. It does so by strengthening the research infrastructure and capacity in West Africa related to climate change and by pooling the expertise of 10 West African countries and Germany.
WASCAL is implemented in a collaborative effort by West African and German partners. Its Competence Centre, a newly established institute in West Africa, carries out research and provides science-based advice to policymakers and stakeholders on climate change impacts, mitigation, and adaptation measures.