Developing agro-meteorological services in Sub-Saharan Africa: a scoping study

Summary

This study provides some guidelines for Dutch private and public parties on opportunities and constraints in developing agro-meteorological services in Sub-Saharan African countries. We focused on agro-meteorological services where there was evidence that weather and climate information was combined with agronomic centered advices for farmers. The potential for developing these services was analysed from the perspective of the institutional, technical and business environment. Several business development “pathways” were suggested varying from a public orientated business model (B2G), to public-private partnerships with an opening towards commercial partnerships (B2B, B2C), a balanced role of private and public actors, and the “right” local partners also in the perspective of combining more services (“bundling”).