Institutional Assessment of Climate Services for Disaster Risks Management Decision-making in Niger

Abstract

In the context of recurrent extreme climate events in Niger, adaptation policies promote climate services (CS) to support climate risk management by strengthening institutional and CS capacity. However, the constant occurrence of climate-related disasters and their impacts raises concerns about the existing institutions and CS implementation. This dissertation examines the institutions and CS capacity for disaster risk management (DRM) decision-making. Using a qualitative approach, data were gathered from 242 scholarly sources, 19 in-depth interviews, 75 community-level interviews, and 47 policy documents and analyzed through Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA), qualitative document analysis, institutional mapping, and analysis. Findings identified three policy-oriented priority areas, including development of CS, use-adoption-uptake of CS, and evaluation of CS. A multi-layered institutional framework operates across upstream and downstream decision-making levels. The national framework for climate services (NFCS) and regional climate outlook forum (RCOF) represent science-policy interfaces linking CS producers and decision-makers. Institutions such as national direction of meteorology (NDM), African centre of meteorological applications for development (ACMAD), AGRHYMET regional climate centre, and Niger basin authority (NBA) deliver diverse CS, including daily, seasonal, and decadal forecasts, alerts, and six early warning systems (EWS). Flood-related CS dissemination is coordinated by the general direction of civil protection (GDCP) and the ministry of humanitarian action and disaster risk reduction (MHA/DRR), while drought-related implementation falls under national platform for food crisis prevention and management (NMPMFC) and early warning system coordination unit (EWS/CU). As part of the gaps, CS implementation is essentially external agenda-setting and project-driven, leading to critical funding gaps, limited sustainability, and weak project takeover. The infrastructure gap, especially in the weather observation network (WON), affects CS production. Actors-level gaps persist, with inadequate last-mile communication, limited accessibility, and format impeding effective implementation. This study recommends enhancing institutional coordination, fostering science-policy interfaces, establishing a sustainable CS funding mechanism, and densifying the WON. It also advocates leveraging technological advancements to implement impact-based EWS.