Ministerial Roundtables are intended to review national cost-benefit analysis of hydrological data investments, and make recommendations to ministries that are responsible for National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) budget allocations.
Ministerial Roundtables will benefit the following stakeholders:
- NMHSs: to increase their prominence and visibility towards governments in view of incentivizing increase in their budgets
- Government: to have evidence-based decision-making support regarding budget allocation, related national policies and regional agreements
The results of the WMO Hydrology Survey 2020 highlighted that NMHSs have insufficient budget allocations and difficulties in attracting government funding. In order to incentivize governments to invest in NMHSs operations, cost-benefit assessments of hydromet services are an effective tool to support evidence-based decision-making. To ensure that the findings of these assessments are presented to the relevant government officials in a comprehensible way, the WMO HydroHub organizes Ministerial Roundtables with government officials responsible for budget allocations.