Highlight 25/2025: Turning Climate Knowledge into Action: How is WMO Advancing National Frameworks for Climate Services?
Karen Ghazaryan, 16 May 2025
As climate extremes become the new norm—bringing with them floods, droughts, heatwaves, and storms—the need for timely, reliable, and actionable climate information has never been more urgent. Around the world, countries are rising to this challenge by transforming how climate knowledge is produced, shared, and used. At the heart of this transformation is the National Framework for Climate Services (NFCS): a nationally led, multi-stakeholder mechanism that connects science with decision-making, ensuring climate information serves the people and sectors who need it most.
Guiding this global movement is the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS), established by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and endorsed by heads of state at the World Climate Conference-3 in 2009 and updated by WMO Members in 2023. GFCS was created with a and ambitious goal: to ensure that every country can harness science-based climate services to reduce risk, build resilience, and support sustainable development. It does so through five key pillars: User Interface Platforms, Climate Services Information Systems, Observations and Monitoring, Research and Prediction, and Capacity Development. These pillars form the backbone of NFCS implementation, helping countries design services that are co-produced with users, tailored to local needs, and integrated into policy and planning.
Realizing this vision requires more than strategy—it requires investment, partnership, and on-the-ground support. That’s where two flagship programmes—CREWS and ClimSA—play a critical role.
The Climate Risk and Early Warning Systems (CREWS) Initiative is a partnership between WMO, the World Bank, and UNDRR that helps countries build and strengthen multi-hazard early warning systems. Active in over 75 countries, CREWS works directly with national meteorological services and disaster agencies to close capacity gaps, improve risk communication, and deliver timely warnings that save lives and livelihoods—especially in the world’s most vulnerable regions.
Together, GFCS, CREWS, and ClimSA are enabling real change. In Malawi and Tanzania, tailored climate advisories are helping farmers and health workers make informed decisions. In the Caribbean, the Caribbean Climate Outlook Forum (CariCOF) provides seasonal forecasts that help countries prepare for droughts and hurricanes. Across the Pacific, small island nations are using climate services developed through the Pacific Roadmap for Strengthened Climate Services to plan resilient futures. In Europe, national roadmaps are helping integrate climate science into cross-sectoral policy and investment.
Now, countries like Mauritius and Armenia are embracing this global momentum. With support from CREWS-SWIO, Mauritius is developing its first NFCS and a new National Strategic Plan (NSP), aligned with Vision 2030 and the UN’s Early Warnings for All initiative. A national consultation workshop is scheduled for February 2025 to co-design these foundational tools. In Armenia, efforts are also underway, with WMO and partners working closely with national authorities to lay the groundwork for an NFCS that supports climate-resilient planning and sectoral services tailored to national needs.
The benefits of NFCS are far-reaching: stronger coordination, more responsive climate services, better-informed policies, and communities that are safer and more prepared.
As climate risks continue to escalate, NFCSs offer a hopeful and practical path forward. Guided by WMO, powered by GFCS, and supported by partners like CREWS and ClimSA, countries are building a future where climate information empowers action—globally connected, locally driven, and universally relevant.
Karen Ghazaryan, Highlight 25/2025: Turning Climate Knowledge into Action: How is WMO Advancing National Frameworks for Climate Services?, 16 May 2025, available at www.meig.ch
The views expressed in the MEIG Highlights are personal to the authors and neither reflect the positions of the MEIG Programme nor those of the University of Geneva.