Improving Preparedness to Agro-Climatic Extremes in Malawi (IPACE-Malawi)

IPACE-Malawi is a collaboration between the University of Leeds, the Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources, the Malawi Red Cross Society and Netherlands Red Cross, and the Met Office. This project will investigate critical climate thresholds for agricultural systems in central and southern Malawi and contribute to improving the forecasting and delivery of agriculturespecific weather information to farmers’ and humanitarian and disaster response organisations in order to improve preparedness to extremes.

Specifically, IPACE-Malawi aims to: (1) identify critical agro-climatic drought and flood indicators in central and southern Malawi; (2) test the skill of short term to seasonal forecast tools in simulating these indicators; and (3) begin to co-design agricultural climate services and input into early warning early action systems based on these indicators/forecast tools.

As part of this work, we would be very interested in working with representatives of humanitarian organisations, civil society groups and farmer associations, agricultural extension service providers, and organisations involved in weather forecasting and climate services. We will work in collaboration with organisations and farmer groups to begin to co-design climate services for farming households and humanitarian early warning early action systems as a foundation for future work.