Author: Ian Harper

Weather impacts people every day and weather information enables them to get out of harm’s way. As global population rises and the climate changes, people are increasingly affected by the weather and hazards such as typhoons, windstorms, and associated flooding that are commonplace in the worldwide news. This represents a huge challenge to weather science, technology and practice to produce ever more accurate, reliable, and accessible weather information. The Global Weather Enterprise Forum has been created to help meet this challenge.

The Global Weather Enterprise is the value chain of activities of the public, private and academic sectors providing accurate, reliable and timely weather and climate related information. It contributes to the safety of life and property, poverty reduction, and the promotion of economic development (c.f., the Sustainable Development Goals and Agenda 2030 of the United Nations).

The Global Weather Enterprise Forum (GWE Forum) is an international engagement between the public, private and academic sectors, which share the common goal of providing accurate and reliable weather information and services that save lives, protect infrastructure and enhance economic output. The goal of the GWE Forum is to create an open dialogue between the public, private and academic sectors in the Global Weather Enterprise and pursue activities that test new ways to improve the delivery and sustainability of weather, climate and water services.

Introduction
The success of the initial phase of the Global Weather Enterprise Forum since its creation in 2018 and developments associated with the WMO Congress in June 2019 have led to a significant evolution and development of the Forum. The Forum will continue to evolve to provide support for the membership drawn widely from the public, private and academic sectors. Engagement, openness and dialogue continue to be the key touchstones of the Forum. As many people as possible who are actively involved in the Global Weather Enterprise are encouraged to become members of the Forum and take part in the dialogue. Further details regarding the development, scope and functioning of the Forum can be found on this website.

Membership
The Forum aspires to have a large, active, and representative membership across the whole Global Weather Enterprise. Membership is open to anyone with an involvement with the Global Weather Enterprise across the public, private and academic sectors who wishes to contribute to the dialogue. If you wish to become a member of the Forum please complete the application form.

Ways of working
The Forum focusses on implementing activities that test ways to improve the delivery of weather, climate and water information and services that are essential for the resilient development of national economies. It operates with projects, via volunteer Expert Groups drawn from the membership, that focus on aspects of the value chain of meteorological and hydrological services. A process of brokering is used to match interests among the members to create viable projects and create the expert groups to field the activities. Projects aim to pilot activities that can be scaled-up or contribute to knowledge transfer; examples of projects can be found here.

A regular Enewsletter, discussion group facilities, and a membership email list will provide a platform to share ideas and to propose projects in selected countries or regions to field-test various concepts for building capacity. Consequently, the Forum will function mostly via these online tools and via the Expert Groups. In addition, on an occasional basis, and in association with major international conferences/workshops, the Forum will hold plenary events to take stock and discuss next steps.

The operation of the Forum is facilitated by a Co-ordination Group, which is drawn from senior members of the enterprise, and in turn is supported by a small team from the World Bank’s Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery GFDRR. There is strong link to the WMO’s Open Consultative Platform (OCP); the GWE Forum and the OCP have a complementary and co-operative relationship.

NOTE ON IMAGES: Unless otherwise stated images on this website are courtesy of NASA.