SAREPTA - MET Norway's involvement in capacity building

MET Norway has been active on the scene of capacity building for a long term, with a more systematic approach since 2011 when the Foreign Ministry approved a cooperative project with Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD). This project had 4 work packages, each with a joint leader team in Norway and Bangladesh, thus ensuring BMD’s involvement in the governance of the project. This structure is kept as a core in the structure of the further engagement in other countries.

Currently MET Norway is involved in projects in Bangladesh and Vietnam in Asia, and Ethiopia, Mozambique, Malawi, and  a new initiative in Tanzania, in Africa.  In addition, we have previously had engagements in Cuba, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and India. The six countries where MET Norway currently is engaged show both common needs and a clear diversity in needs and capabilities, e.g. in the area of climate the engagement has covered everything from data rescue to downscaling of climate projections dependent on local needs and capabilities. This leads up to the main lesson learned from our engagement, the questions we need to ask repeatedly: “What is the need of your service to develop in the short and long term?” and “How can our cooperation aid your progress towards where you want your service to develop?”. And let the answers of these questions shape the engagement and training of personnel in the recipient countries.

NORAD, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, asked MET Norway to coordinate all our projects into one major project. This coordination into one project, called SAREPTA, combined with the diverse needs in the recipient countries, resulted in a project containing a menu of possible work packages and sub projects for each country. These sub projects were built from the possible work packages reflecting the country's needs and available human and technical resources. For all work packages open source tools are used, and the resources are prioritized on training personnel in these tools, rather than on tools that require licenses. We believe that this approach is more efficient and better allows continuity in the long run.

MET Norway is also engaged in SOFF and CORDEX, explicitly engaging in SOFF only in countries where MET Norway has activity through SAREPTA thus enabling coordination between the national efforts in SAREPTA and SOFF. The CORDEX Flagship Pilot Study (FPS) southeast Africa is coordinated by Mozambique’s national meteorological services, and aims to build a regional network of competence within climate research, and is supported by MET Norway.