In June 2011, USAID organized a West African Adaptation Workshop under the Adaptation Partnership in Dakar, Senegal. The workshop had several goals, including improving the awareness of and demand for climate services in the region among decision-makers in various sectors, improving climate service providers’ understanding of decision-makers’ needs, identifying opportunities to design and deliver climate services for decision making, and sharing information on good practices and models.

This report (one of two) contains an assessment of the forecasts and science behind the advisories themselves, and an assessment of the use of the agrometeorological advisories at the community, household, and individual level in southern Mali.

The report recommends:

performing a detailed quantitative assessment of the past performance of the forecasts that undergird the advisories
shift current advisory construction away from the use of analogue years, as previous experiences of similar rainfall may not hold in a changing climate
conduct research into the predictability of intra-seasonal variations in rainfall, including the start and end dates of the rainy season, and probability of extreme events, such as prolonged dry spells or very intense rains, at both one-week and one-month lead times, as parallel studies in other parts of the Sahel suggest these quantities are potentially predictable
investigate means of conveying forecast uncertainties to farmers as a part of advisories
expand advisories to address gender, the needs of pastoralists, and for poorer farmers who may have greater difficulty responding to advisories in a timely manner
better understanding the role of weather and climate (and therefore climate services) in rural
livelihoods more broadly