Capacity and Needs Assessments (CNAs) assess institutional, human and technical capacities, gaps and needs of NMHSs, hydrological forecasting institutions, water resources management bodies and Basin Organizations at national and regional levels, and are used to develop Roadmaps for improved service delivery.
Benefits for:
- NMHSs: to better understand and address their gaps and needs, looking at the full hydromet services value chain, based on Roadmap recommendations
- Donors: to target their investments in a more effective way
The WMO HydroHub facilitates the conduct of CNAs, in countries where the need was identified. The CNAs are carried out in three consecutive assessments:
- Organizational Assessment: to understand the legal and institutional framework of water resource management in the country, identifying the responsible institutions, their mandates and responsibilities;
- Technical Assessment: to identify the existing gaps across the value chain in the delivery of hydromet products and services, tailored to each institution’s mandate and responsibilities identified in the Organizational Assessment;
- Staff Competency Assessment: to identify the existing gaps in human resources of the institution (including gender balance and youth) and to create a competency-based capacity development plan (optional).
The main output of the CNAs is the formulation of a national/basin-wide Roadmap for improved hydromet services. Co-developed amongst relevant local partners, these Roadmaps include an outline of a potential implementation plan for enhancing hydrological, meteorological and climatological services in the country and/or region. This activity has a capacity building component, aiming at enabling countries to apply on their own the proposed CNA methodology, which can be implemented through a system tutoring either by WMO Regional Training Centers, the WMO network of experts or other Members that have already applied the CNA methodology. This activity builds on the experience acquired by carrying out CNAs during Phase I with the support of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). CNA activities are estimated to last 8 to 12 months and are coordinated by the WMO Secretariat. In most cases, the assessments are conducted by experts from the WMO Expert Community with the appropriate regional and technical background.