For many developing-country NMSs without internal training facilities, advanced capacity development often relies on short, intensive courses lasting one or two weeks and focused on specific techniques or tools. While these courses can improve knowledge and technical skills, they rarely lead to a meaningful increase in competence—which requires the sustained application of methods and tools within real operational environments.

In line with this principle, one of the most effective approaches to building lasting competence is to embed trainees within an operational team for a sufficiently long period. This allows them to acquire not only technical knowledge but also hands-on operational experience and an understanding of the team’s working practices.

During the joint CALMET XVI and CONEC T 3 conference held in Florence, Italy, on 24–28 November 2025, a panel session presented the collaborative experience between the Meteorological Service of the Tuscany Region (LaMMA, Italy), the National Meteorological Services of Niger (DMN) and Burkina Faso (ANAM), supported by the National Research Council of Italy (CNR) through the Institute of BioEconomy (IBE) and the WMO Regional Training Center in Italy.

With the facilitation of Mr. Stephen Kerr (Meteorological Service of Canada), the panelists illustrated how, within the Slapis Sahel project, the WMO Regional Training Center in Italy designed and implemented a blended and integrated training programme aimed at strengthening the competencies of the NMSs of Niger and Burkina Faso. The objective was to enable local forecasters, modelers and IT specialists to operationalize regional Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) chains in support of hydrometeorological early warning systems.

The cornerstone of this programme was the embedding of two modelers from the African partner institutions into the IBE–LaMMA operational team for more than a year. Working closely with Italian researchers and forecasters, they acquired not only technical knowledge and skills but also operational experience and competence in running and maintaining NWP systems. This training strategy is fully aligned with the WMO Competency Framework for Public Weather Service Forecasters and Advisers.

The panelists discussed both the results and the challenges of this approach, highlighting its mutual benefits for African and Italian institutions. They also outlined the conditions needed to ensure the sustainability and replicability of embedding trainees within operational teams, including institutional commitment, technical readiness and individual motivation.

The Panlelists; from left to right: Vieri Tarchiani, Bernardo Gozzini, Valerio Capecchi, Rakiswende Thomas Bere, Younoussa Adamou Sayri and Stephen Kerr.

The post From Training to Transformation: Co-Developing Forecasting Capacities for Early Warning in West Africa appeared first on climateservices.it CNR-IBE.

The mission built on technical discussions held earlier in April 2025 in Niamey and Ouagadougou, during which the first validation results of the WRF model were presented and opportunities for improving forecasting tools were explored. A dedicated online seminar on 19 May 2025 further introduced MOLOCH’s potential and led to the definition of a roadmap for testing and transferring the operational chain to the Agence Nationale de la Météorologie (ANAM) of Burkina Faso and Niger’s Direction Nationale de la Météorologie (DNM).

During the five-day “learning by doing” training, ANAM experts received hands-on knowledge on the installation, configuration, and initial testing of the MOLOCH model. Participants worked on domain setup, simulation tests, model management, post-processing procedures, and the generation of operational forecast products. A field visit and several technical sessions further supported collaborative learning and problem-solving.

Delivered by specialists from IBE-CNR and the LaMMA Consortium—together with experts from DNM and ANAM—this mission marked an important step toward enhancing local forecasting capacities and improving severe-weather early-warning services across the Sahel.

In addition, on Friday, during LaMMA’s regular weekly forecast livestream, a live connection was made with the two LaMMA forecasters and Thomas Bere (ANAM) presented the weekly weather bulletin for Burkina Faso from the weather–media room of the Burkina Faso Meteorological Service (minute 12:45).

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