About PPE

Public-Private Engagement encompasses interaction and collaboration between entities from the public, private and business sectors, as well as academia and civil society, in the production and delivery of weather, climate, hydrological, marine and related environmental data, information and services to users worldwide.

Vision 

The global societal risks related to extreme weather, climate, water and other environmental events should be addressed through interdisciplinary and multi-sectoral partnerships. The expanding opportunities in using meteorological, climatological, hydrological and related environmental information and services to inform critical decisions can foster increased societal and structural resilience, and sustainable economic development. 

Mission 

Provide leadership and promote the high-level WMO policy on PPE, work with Members and partners to establish principles and guidance for successful public-private engagement; facilitate a continuous dialogue between players and stakeholders from public, private, academic sectors and civil society based on collaboration, trust and mutual reinforcement.

Geneva Declaration 2019 

The Geneva Declaration 2019: Building Community for Weather, Climate and Water Actions  reflects the new paradigms of cooperation and partnership between stakeholders from all sectors of the weather enterprise to address extreme weather, climate change, water scarcity and other environmental hazards. 

Furthermore, the Open Consultative Platform serves as a vehicle for sustainable and constructive dialogue between the sectors, by articulating a common vision for the future of the weather enterprise in the coming decade and beyondPrinciples of engagement.

‘People first’ principle 

Recognizing the core mandate of supporting local-to-global decisions related to saving lives and property and supporting economic productivity by providing essential, meteorological, climatological, hydrological and environmental information, WMO adheres to the “people-first” approach to public-private engagement and partnerships that have been promoted by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and widely accepted as a vehicle to achieve the SDGs. 

Mutual benefit 

Successful and sustainable public-private engagement builds on contributions from both the public and the private sectors, with each sector contributing to the success of the other. While the public sector is more likely to invest in long-term programmes and the underpinning core infrastructures needed for sustained high-quality weather and climate monitoring, the private sector can be more responsive to targeted investments to bridge data gaps and to meet special customers’ needs. The private sector is also faster at applying innovation and emerging technologies. The public sector’s deep understanding of societal needs and trusted connection with governing authorities are critical in assuring community safety through responsiveness to authoritative warnings. At the same time, the technological agility of the private sector may present opportunities to meet novel and emerging service needs. 

Guiding principles for public-private engagement 

A set of principles to guide successful public-private engagement described in the Guidelines for Public-private Engagement includes: 

  • Advancing the overarching goals articulated in the WMO Convention, 

  • Shared value, 

  • Sustainability, 

  • Advancing together, 

  • Level playing field, 

  • Integrity, 

  • Sovereignty, and 

  • Transparency. 

See the Guidelines for Public-private Engagement in WMO official languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish. 

PPE scope and purpose 

PPE promotes cooperation between the stakeholders from the public, private and academic sectors, and civil society, in advancing the weather and climate intelligence at all levels in addressing the rapidly growing and changing demand of society. 

Through international multi-sectoral dialogues, PPE establishes a process to identify converging approaches to address major challenges of global weather, climate and water enterprise. It reflects the interest of all WMO Programmes to take advantage of partnerships and innovation across all sectors in order to boost the availability of high-quality information and services. PPE fosters and maintains transparent, trusting and sustainable collaboration of all stakeholders, and in doing so, supports the major WMO role in promoting free and unrestricted international sharing of data and products that makes possible the operation of all stakeholders. In addition, PPE focuses on the WMO role of promulgating international standards to ensure quality, interoperability, efficiency and provision of fit-for-purpose services across the enterprise. 

PPE contributes to the efforts for reducing the capacity gap between the developed and developing countries through targeted assistance in cooperation with the development agencies. This involves improved understanding of cross-sectoral collaboration, structured national and regional dialogue to build trust and to promote good practice of public-private-academic collaboration under the diverse legislative and institutional frameworks. 

Programme Priorities 2020-2023 

The priorities of the WMO PPE for the period of 2020-2023 are: 

  • Fostering stakeholders dialogue and advance common priorities of weather, climate and water enterprise (multilateral and bilateral); 

  • Analytical studies and positions for "key challenges"; identifying and promoting good practices;  

  • Raising awareness of Members and other stakeholders for Public-Private-Academic Engagement and associated policies; 

  • Facilitating regional and national dialogue and initiatives (pilots) to build a collaborative culture of public-private-academic engagement; 

  • Contribution to the data policy dialogue and related events (e.g., the WMO Data Conference in Nov 2020); 

  • Working with industry partners, such as HMEI, to build better understanding of specific PPE challenges; 

  • Enhancing competency of WMO programmes and activities through public-private-academic engagement.