The first regional workshop with stakeholders from the Lake Victoria Basin took place from 4th to 5th September 2023 in Nairobi, Kenya. This workshop is an essential part of the co-design process in OUTLAST to ensure that the developed system in OUTLAST will be tailored to the needs of users, stakeholders, and policymakers from multiple sectors all around the world. For this purpose, more than 20 participants from five countries in the Lake Victoria Basin (Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda) and regional organizations (ICPAC, LVBC, NBI) joined the meeting which was hosted by OUTLAST and WMO and organized by the Nile Basin Initiative.
During the workshop, we presented:
- Current activities regarding drought hazard and management in the region
- The Hydrological Status and Outlook System (HydroSOS, WMO)
- The connection between OUTLAST and HydroSOS
- General concepts of deriving drought hazard indicators and the potential use of a variety of meteorological, agricultural, and hydrological drought hazard indicators
- Ensemble forecasts and their benefits for seasonal forecasting
As part of the co-design process, the participants were actively involved in different sessions to provide feedback and to discuss potential drought hazard indicators, focusing on three sectors: meteorology, agriculture, and hydrology. In each session, participants could provide their opinions on the presented indicators during group work and preliminarily define certain indicators, which are the most useful for them. Furthermore, they had opportunities to express their ideas and discuss the visualization of the end products on the HydroSOS web portal.
Together with the second regional workshop, which will take place in Central Asia (Almaty, Kazakhstan) in October 2023, the outcomes of this workshop, will be the basis for further development of the operational forecasting system in OUTLAST. We greatly appreciate the valuable support and contribution of all participants, project partners, and the NBI to the success of OUTLAST.
Additional details are available in a downloadable PDF document summarizing the event.
For any further inquiries, please reach out to Tinh Vu.