The 13th Meeting of the RIMES Council was held from 20-22 January 2021 virtually over Zoom due to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic related travel restrictions. The meeting was presided by Dr. Ravichandran, Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India, and RIMES Council Chair. The online event gathered around 100 participants from the 45 Member and collaborating countries and development partners of RIMES (refer to Annex 1 for the list of participants).

The 13th RIMES Council was designed around the five pillars of the information value chain, adopting a user-centered bottom-up approach. Seven sessions were conducted over two days to explore the various RIMES programs underway and updates by member countries on the innovative institutional mechanisms to seamlessly connect all the pillars. Engagement with key development partners on regional programmes, with the WMO in formulation of a Joint Strategy and Action Plan, and with the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) on data sharing was also presented.