ACMAD
From the newsletter
Niger is the site of Africa’s first Climate-Health Desk. Sandrine Wendlasida-Combéré, the head of the hub, and Hunter Jones, the Global Lead for Climate Services for Health at the WHO–WMO Joint Office, explain how the hub converts climate data into practical health planning tools for health systems and pharmaceuticals.
"Traditional health surveillance gives us a foundation, tracking cases as they come in. But by integrating climate data and weather forecasts, we can start to see what might be coming," says Jones.
The desk works with ministries of health and meteorological services to co-produce climate–health tools, including early warnings and decision-support products for the health sector.
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Sandrine Wendlasida-Combéré is Head of the Climate and Health Desk at the African Centre of Meteorological Applications for Development and Hunter Jones is the Global Lead for Climate Services for Health at the WHO–WMO Climate and Health Joint Office.
Q What is the long-term funding model for the Desk, will countries eventually pay for these services, or will it remain grant-funded?
Sandrine Wendlasida-Combéré (SWC): The African Centre of Meteorological Applications for Development (ACMAD) is an intergovernmental organisation whose core funding model is based on contributions from its 54 Member States, as outlined in its charter. In principle, these country contributions are intended to cover the Centre’s core operational functions. Our long-term vision is to fully institutionalise the Climate and Health Desk for Africa, integrating it as a core function within ACMAD’s mandate and regular activities.
However, in practice, Member State contributions have been irregular and often insufficient to sustain all priority activities. As a result, external grant funding remains essential, particularly in the medium to long term, to support the development, scaling, and continuity of the Desk’s services. Looking ahead, a hybrid funding model is therefore the most realistic approach: progressively strengthening country ownership and contributions, while continuing to leverage partner and donor support to ensure sustainability and expansion of services.
Hunter Jones (HJ): Countries are already paying for the absence of climate services for health: every year, we see preventable deaths from heat stress, water-borne and vector-borne diseases, and malnutrition-driven stunting in children. In short, climate change is reshaping health risks faster than health systems can adapt. If we don’t use climate intelligence to act ahead of crises, the cost in lives and productivity is enormous.
The Accelerator, a global initiative to scale up the co-production and use of climate services for health, led by the WHO–WMO Climate and Health Joint Office, is building capacity at regional and national meteorological services. We want these services to become permanent, sustainable, integrated features of how health authorities and meteorological agencies work together.
As these services demonstrate value through early warnings that help prevent deaths and interventions that protect vulnerable populations, countries will sustain them within their institutional systems. We are building a global–regional–national model that ensures countries can access regional services while developing their own tailored systems. Our role is to accelerate that capacity through training, fellowships, demonstration projects, and evidence of what works, why it works, and how it can be scaled.
Q How are you ensuring ministries of health actually integrate these climate insights into budgeting, planning and procurement decisions?
SWC: We’ve taken a very practical and demand-driven approach. First, we focus on co-production. We don’t develop climate services in isolation: we work closely with health actors to identify their most urgent climate-sensitive health risks, based on their experience and priorities. From there, we jointly develop tailored products that directly support decision-making. For example, heatwave thresholds are defined, tested, and validated at country level to reflect the national context.
Second, capacity building is essential. Through the Climate and Health Desk, we support health professionals in understanding and using climate information through mentoring, hands-on training, and regular user engagement sessions. The goal is to ensure information is not only available but also understood and applied. We also facilitate peer learning through platforms where countries share experiences and best practices, helping accelerate uptake across the region.
Finally, strong institutional alignment is key. The Africa Climate and Health Desk is closely aligned with regional strategies and works in partnership with organisations such as Africa CDC and WHO AFRO. We contribute to frameworks like the Africa CDC Climate Change and Health Strategy and the WHO Climate and Health Initiative. By anchoring our work within these policy frameworks and collaborating directly with national experts, we ensure climate information is delivered in a usable format that can be integrated into existing systems.
HJ: Health practitioners must be at the centre from the start—not consulted after the fact, but sitting alongside climatologists and meteorologists to define what decisions they need to make and what information they actually require.
Health leaders need tailored information: the timing and location of heat stress risks, seasonal dynamics of infectious disease vectors, and conditions driving malnutrition. This is where climate-health desks come in, ensuring information is delivered in a usable format for decision-making.
We are also supporting formal collaboration agreements between meteorological and health institutions so joint planning becomes embedded in how they operate. Staff are being trained to bridge sectors through fellowships, placing epidemiologists in meteorological offices and climatologists in health ministries. We are also encouraging adoption of standards such as the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP), which allows climate forecasts to flow directly into health systems and alert networks in real time, ensuring timely action.
Q What metrics will you use to demonstrate that climate-health intelligence is reducing costs, improving outcomes, or preventing system shocks?
HJ: We start with process metrics that show collaboration is working. Are meteorologists and epidemiologists working together? Are health systems incorporating climate data into routine decision-making? Are forecasts actually shaping interventions such as public health messaging, vector-control timing, and preparedness for demand spikes? These indicators show whether the system is functioning.
Measuring outcomes such as prevented deaths or avoided hospitalisations is more complex. Heat mortality is often underreported, and surveillance systems vary across countries. Robust attribution requires modelling counterfactuals—what would have happened without early warning systems. We are working with partners to strengthen data systems, analytical capacity, and evaluation methods. This takes time, but transparency is essential as systems mature.
SWC: From ACMAD’s perspective, we can assess value by comparing the cost of anticipatory action with emergency response. For example, pre-positioning medicines or scaling vector control based on forecasts versus responding during a crisis. We can also measure avoided losses such as reduced hospital overload and emergency procurement costs. In addition, we can track changes in climate-sensitive health outcomes like meningitis or heat-related illness, and monitor how widely the information is being used in planning, budgeting, and procurement.
Q What is the strategy to scale this beyond a regional hub into country-level systems without losing consistency or quality of data?
SWC: Capacity building is central to our strategy. We are strengthening national expertise within ministries of health and meteorological services so countries can generate and use climate–health information themselves.
We also rely on standardised tools and methodologies to ensure consistency while allowing national adaptation. Partnerships with WHO and WMO provide coordination and ensure alignment across systems.
HJ: The WMO model is designed for this. Global centres generate forecasts, regional centres such as ACMAD downscale them, and national services refine them with local data and expertise, ensuring consistency and relevance.
For health, communication must also flow both ways, with countries feeding risk signals back into the discussion. We are also launching national Climate-Health Desks in pilot countries to embed this model directly within national governments.
Q Where do you see opportunities for private sector players like health tech, insurers, pharma, to plug into or commercialise services from the Desk?
SWC: The Climate and Health Desk remains a public good platform, but there are clear entry points for private sector engagement. It provides climate–health intelligence that can be embedded into digital health tools, decision-support systems, and early warning applications. The pharmaceutical sector can use it to improve supply chain forecasting, reduce stockouts, and optimise procurement in anticipation of disease peaks.
HJ: Life-saving climate-health intelligence must remain a public good, accessible regardless of ability to pay. However, it can be integrated into existing systems. For example, heat alerts delivered through the Common Alerting Protocol can trigger early identification of at-risk patients and timely clinical action. Much of the infrastructure already exists and can be scaled to support preventive health systems powered by climate and health intelligence.