Uliza-WI chatbot: tailored agro-weather advisory information and alerting for African smallholder farmers.

This contribution presents the co-design, development, and pilot implementation of the Uliza-WI chatbot, a digital agro-weather information service developed by Weather Impact to strengthen climate resilience among smallholder farmers. Implemented in Kenya, Ghana, and Zimbabwe within the EU-Horizon SAFE4ALL project, Uliza-WI delivers localized agro-weather advisories and early warning information through an interactive, two-way communication platform that enables on-demand information tailored to the users' input. It provides daily weather forecast, rain season onset status, seasonal forecast, and crop-specific advices, based on the farmers' location, as well as general good agricultural practice guidelines.

A key strength of this initiative lies in its strong ground presence and close collaboration with farmers and local partners. The chatbot is co-designed with farmers through continuous engagement, ensuring that their needs, preferences, and constraints are directly reflected in the service. Lessons learned highlight the importance of an accessible and gender-sensitive design, including delivering information in local languages and in pictorial and voice-based form to address low literacy barriers, and the strategic transition from Telegram to WhatsApp to increase user uptake and engagement.

Collaboration with national meteorological and hydrological services (NMHS) has been instrumental to ensure the meteorological quality, relevance, and institutional alignment of the forecasts and advisories. These partnerships also are crucial for the future sustainability and joint operation of the service, contributing to strengthening national weather information services and early warning systems.

This contribution will reflect on successes and challenges in co-development, including scalability and user engagement, while defining viable sustainability models. It will provide practical insights into effective service design, emphasizing the value of local co-development, user-centered focus, and strong institutional collaboration, to deliver impactful climate services.