13 ^th Meeting of RIMES Council

23-24 November 2021, Virtual Sessions

(time is indicated in Bangkok time, i.e., UTC+7)

The 13th Meeting of RIMES Council is being organized from 23-24 November 2021 through online (virtual) sessions due to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic related travel restrictions.

RIMES Member States and Collaborating countries face immense challenges in addressing the impacts from a changing climate, ensuring resilience in face of more frequent and intensifying hazards and safeguarding sustainable development.

The National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) and the technical institutions providing vital early warning information deliver critical services to their governments and citizens that encompass all three distinct, yet interconnected domains of Climate Change Action, Disaster Risk Reduction and Sustainable Development. This provides a great opportunity for NMHSs/ technical institutions providing early warning and the user stakeholder institutions collaboratively to:

capitalize on the high level of awareness around these areas and leverage the renewed interest towards services aimed at addressing the social needs and demands
lead the co-production of tailormade services and decision-support-systems co-developed by NMHSs and sectoral user/stakeholder institutions
advocate at highest levels for ensuring adequate public investments to provide these services by focusing on, and highlighting their benefits to the society

The weather/ climate/ early warning information value chain approach encapsulates perfectly this opportunity. The 13th RIMES Council is accordingly designed around the 5 pillars of this value chain, adopting a bottom-up approach. This commences from the identification and articulation of societal demands (Pillar 1) leading to creation of tailor-made services to address these demands (Pillar 2), that are operationalized through integrated decision-support systems (Pillar 3) which are built around the modelling and forecasting capabilities (Pillar 2) drawing upon robust observation and monitoring systems (Pillar 1).

Seven sessions spread over two days explore the various RIMES programs underway across the 5 pillars of the information value chain and sharing by Member Countries on the innovative Institutional mechanisms implemented by them 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 ECMWF on data sharing will also be presented.

The 13th Council is expected to have over 100 participants from the 48 Member and Collaborating countries and the development partners.

Day 1 November, 23, 2021
03.00 – 4.00 pm	Opening Session
[Bangkok Time UTC+7]	• Welcome & Participant introductions, RIMES Secretariat	(5 min)
	• Address by Secretary-General, WMO	(10 min)
	• Address by Executive Secretary, UNESCAP	(10 min)
	• RIMES vision in the Decade of 2021-2030 by H.E. Minister of State for Environment and Climate Change, RIMES Secretariat	(15 min)
	• Address by Chairman of RIMES Council	(15 min)
	• Overview of the agenda	(5 min)
	• Secretariat’s Report by Mr. Ali Shareef, DDG, Maldives Meteorological Services, and Focal Point, RIMES Secretariat	(15 min)
04.00 – 5.15 pm	Session 1: RIMES Programs The objective of this session is to take stock of RIMES delivery of value-added services and future plans
[Bangkok Time UTC+7]	RIMES Experiences in:
	• Address by Secretary-General, WMO	(7 min)
	• Seamless provision of Climate/ weather/ hazard information value chain along the 5 pillars of Information Value Chain Mr. Ramraj Narasimhan, RIMES	(7 min)
	• Meeting Societal Demands: Pillar 1 Ms Ruby Rose & Mr. Raihanul Haque Khan, RIMES	(7 min)
	Delivering tailor-made services to meet societal demands: Pillar 2 Ms. Carlyne Yu, RIMES	(7 min)
	• Data Analytics: DSS: Integrated Services to support tailor made Services: Pillar 3 Mr Itesh Dash , RIMES	(7 min)
	• Forecast Modelling and Analytics: Weather, Climate, Hydrological and Ocean State and Coastal Forecast services to support Integrated Services: Pillar 4 Mr Itesh Dash, Ms.J.Elaine Layug and Mr Anshul Agrawal, RIMES	(8 min)
	• Regional observation networks Regional Data Exchange systems:Pillar 5: RIMES NHMS and ECMWF Collaboration Mr.Nazmul and Mr.J.Que RIMES	(10 min)
	• RIMES Future Directions in the decade of 2021-2030: WMO and RIMES Joint Strategy and Action Plan Mr.Ali Shareef, DDG MMS and Focal Point for RIMES Secretariat	(7 min)
	Q and A	(15 min)
5:15 – 6:15 pm	Session 2: Institutional innovations to seamlessly connect all 5 pillars of Information Value Chain Follow up and Progress on 12th RIMES Council Resolution on institutional Mechanisms to connect NHMS and User Stakeholder institutions for co-production of Climate Services through incentive-based data sharing mechanisms facilitated by RIMES
[Bangkok Time UTC+7]	• Sri Lanka: Sri Lanka National Center for Climate Application, Department of Irrigation, Sri Lanka	(5 min)
	• Impact Based Forecasts and Early Warning Services: IMD and RIMES Unit (IRU), DG IMD	(5 min)
	• Bangladesh National Center Climate for Climate Applications, Director BMD	(5 min)
	• PNG: National Multi-hazard Early Warning Center and RIMES Sub-regional hub for Pacific: Director, NWS, PNG	(5 min)
	• Madagascar: National Multi-Hazard Early Warning Center and RIMES Sub Regional Center: DG DGM Madagascar	(5 min)
	• NCHM Bhutan- Integrated Early Warning system through Gross Happiness Commission	(5 min)
	• Integrated DSS for Community based Early warning System- NDRRMA & DHM Nepal	(10 min)
	• Monsoon Forum- Myanmar, DG DMH, Myanmar	(5 min)
	• Monsoon Forum- Sri Lanka, DG DoM, Sri Lanka	(5 min)
	• Q and A	(10 min)
6:15 – 7:00 pm	Session 3: Contribution of Partners to RIMES Programs Session 3: Contribution of Partners to RIMES Programs Contribution of ECMWF, World Bank SAHF and CARE and ARRCC and USAID Programs covering the 5 Pillars of Information Value Chain
[Bangkok Time UTC+7]	Lead: Mr. David Rogers
	• RIMES Master Plan (2021-2026) - Updates and its Contribution to DRR, Climate Action and SDGs Mr. Ramraj Narasimhan, RIMES	(5 min)
	• ECMWF Cooperation in strengthening resilience in RIMES Member States and Collaborating countries Mr. Fabio Venuti, Head of Cabinet, Office of DG, ECMWF	(5 min)
	• World Bank: South Asia Hydromet Forum (SAHF) Ms. Arati Belle- Senior DRM Specialist, World Bank	(5 min)
	• World Bank: Climate Adaptation and Resilience for South Asia (CARE) Mr. Hemang Karelia –Team Lead CARE Project, World Bank	(5 min)
	• Asia Regional Resilience to a Changing Climate (ARRCC) Mr. David Corbelli, Senior International Development Manager, UKMET	(5 min)
	• People-centred Early Warning Systems and Forecast based Actions Mr. Michael Ernst, USAID Regional Office Bangkok	(5 min)
	• Q and A	(10 min)
7 :00 pm- 7: 10 pm	Closing remarks for Day 1 and summary by Chair, RIMES Council

Day 2 November, 24, 2021
02.00 – 3.00 pm	Chair, RIMES Council: Remarks to initiate the day’s proceedings Session 4: Regional Data Sharing, Data Management, Data Analytics The NMHSs-RIMES-ECMWF Data Exchange Platform set up to share observation data and receive high-resolution forecast data from ECMWF, its participants and status
[Bangkok Time UTC+7]	• Demonstration of NHMS ECMWF and RIMES Data exchange Mechanisms Mr. Itesh Dash, RIMES	(5 min)
	• Data sharing discussions with Member countries for enhanced sharing of data from the region with ECMWF under the renewed RIMES-ECMWF Collaboration Agreement Countries participating/ agreed to participate in the Data Sharing Mechanism- DGs /Directors of NHMS (2 minutes each): Tonga, Samoa, PNG , Philippines,Timor Leste, Mongolia, Armenia, Lao PDR, Cambodia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Nepal , Bhutan , India , Maldives, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, Djibouti, Yemen, Kenya, Mozambique, Comoros, Seychelles, Madagascar Remarks by ECMWF, Mr. Fabio Venuti, Head of Cabinet, Office of DG, ECMWF	(5 min)
	• Recommendations of the Council	(10 min)
3:00 – 4:00 pm	Session 5: WMO and RIMES Joint 4th RIMES Ministers Conference: Preparations & Updates: The objective of this session is to provide update on RIMES and WMO Joint Strategy and Action Plan in the context of the 4th Ministers Conference
[Bangkok Time UTC+7]	• WMO and RIMES Joint Strategy and Action Plan- 2021 2025 Mr. Ben Churchill, WMO Regional Office for Asia and Pacific,Singapore Mr. Amos Makaru, WMO Regional Office for Africa, Addis a Baba	(8 min) (8 min)
	• Replication of RIMES South Asia Program in other sub-regions of Asia, Pacific and Africa through WMO and RIMES Ministers Conference: Discussion Mozambique, Seychelles,PNG, Armenia ( 5 Minutes each )	(20 min)
	• RIMES Ministers Conference Preparation Status: Post-Covid, November 2022 DG, Dept of Irrigation Government of Sri Lanka	(5 min)
	• Any other interventions	(20 min)
4:00 – 4:30 pm	Session 6: Development partners - on-going and planned programs
[Bangkok Time UTC+7]	• UN ESCAP – South and South-West Asia Office initiative to support national and regional efforts for climate-proofed sustainable development Mr. Rajan Ratna, Director a.i., UN ESCAP Subregional Office for South and South-West Asia	(5 min)
	• Trigger Thresholds for Forecast based Actions, RIMES-FAO collaborative programme Ms. Catherine Jones, Emergency and Rehabilitation offices RAP FAO	(5 min)
	• RIMES-WFP collaborative programme on Last-mile Information System and Feedback Mr. Nicolas Bidault, Senior Regional Monitoring and VAM Adviser, WFP	(5 min)
	• Discussion	(15 min)
4:30 – 5:15 pm	Session 7: UNEP and RIMES Collaboration on GCF Project Development
[Bangkok Time UTC+7]	• Updates from UNEP on collaboration on GCF Project Development Mr.Jochem Zoetelief Senior Programme Officer	(10 min)
	Country Statements on GCF Project Development Status Timor Leste Sudan Maldives Bhutan PNG Madagascar	(5 min) (5 min) (5 min) (5 min) (5 min) (5 min)
5:15 – 6.00 pm	Draft resolutions
6.00 – 6:05 pm	Closure of the 13th RIMES Council Session