Capacity-building refers to the broad range of activities and resources needed to enhance human resource knowledge and technical skills, institutional abilities, and infrastructural capacities to generate and apply climate knowledge to decision-making.

Fundamentally, the underlying state of the science and functional capacities of national hydrological and meteorological services to provide end-to-end climate services will determine the starting point for many collaborations toward health-tailored climate services. The infrastructural and institutional capacity includes: observation of the local climate, along with data collection and exchange procedures; the practices for climate data management and quality control, including data rescue and digitization; the status of product development such as operational climate monitoring, assessment and prediction, climate change projections and downscaling; and finally the ability to engage with various sectors in order to appropriately package and communicate tailored products. Health partners or authorities can parallel these services with health surveillance, data management procedures, epidemiological analysis, and the familiarity and confidence to use probabilistic risk information for intervention monitoring and planning.

Different kinds of stakeholders will require diverse types of capacity-building, based on the roles they play to produce and use climate information. Focusing on the human and institutional resources needed to co-produce and apply climate information, the principal actors can be grouped into four broad categories: meteorological and climate professionals, health professionals, health-relevant partners, and citizens. (See table below)

The meteorological community needs technical and infrastructural capacities to produce and deliver usable and reliable climate products, and human resource skills to understand the health problems being addressed, to clearly communicate climate science, and to listen and understand user needs to be able to engage in meaningful dialogue. 

Activities targeting health professionals often focus on enhancing managerial capacities to lead the development and implementation process; engage in multidisciplinary dialogue; understand and generate evidence on the linkages between climate and health; and to value and use the climate services developed to protect the health of the population.

Multi-disciplinary health-relevant partners are critical to develop effective climate services for health risks that originate and are managed outside the health sector. Capacity-building should help build bridges that share information and diagnostics, strengthen collaboration, and improve multi-sectoral risk management.

Community-targeted capacity-building often includes efforts to raise awareness of the health risks of extreme weather and climate; identify which populations are most vulnerable; interpret public service messages; and take actions at the community and individual levels to protect health.

Examples of capacity-building needs of diverse partners

Capacity should be built simultaneously at individual, institutional, and community levels. Even with adequate levels of technical expertise for climate services development, they will not become useful tools for health decision-making unless health decision-makers are able to effectively understand, value, trust and use these services. This requires decision-makers

to have the capacity to institutionalize climate services as decision tools; interpret climate service outputs; integrate and use these outputs in the global context of health risk evaluation; and include information provided by climate services in identifying and selecting the most cost-effective solutions. This capacity can be improved by communication and dialogue with other experts and partners. 

Likewise, if the technical expertise and capacity among health decision-makers is present but communities are not capable of understanding or taking action based upon public advisories, the advantage derived from those services will be severely limited. Communicating research findings to communities in a clear and understandable language will help them understand the need for climate services. The engagement of communities in climate service development, application and evaluation will help to build their capacity to benefit from the climate services developed. This implies that climate knowledge and information need to be integrated into public health training at all levels – including schools of public health and professional courses such as those for field epidemiologists.

Capacity-building needs will vary depending on the goals of the climate service being developed. However, some useful common approaches include:

• Mapping and assessing existing institutional, infrastructural, human resource, and community capacities through surveys or other instruments.
• Strengthening the enabling environment to reinforce institutional capacities.
• Investing in, and upgrading information technology and communication equipment and systems.
• Training community leaders, volunteers and health workers on the health risks exacerbated by climate and weather conditions and appropriate responses that can be taken.
• Involving communities in health and climate data collection and interpretation.
• Training health professionals from local and regional health bureaus on health and climate linkages, disaster management, and analytical methods, such as environmental epidemiology and spatial biostatistics.
• Conducting workshops to build capacity at appropriate levels (local, regional and national) to use the climate products and services developed.
• Embedding climate and health courses in the course curricula of higher education institutions and engaging them in technology and knowledge transfers to the public health community.
• Developing tailored training and outreach materials especially targeted to high-risk groups.
• Organizing multidisciplinary discussion groups to increase communication capacities across professionals from different fields.
• Organizing regular knowledge refresher courses on climate–sensitive disease detection and diagnosis.
• Fostering expert and staff exchanges between national and regional partners, such as the WMO Regional Climate Centers.