Tailoring Education and Training to Specific Needs of Members

By Paul Bugeac, WMO Secretariat

Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather, climate and water-related hazards, creating a growing demand from WMO Members for assistance to implement sustainable early warning systems and weather, climate and water information services to help communities to mitigate and adapt to the changes. Though WMO Members have worked together over the last 75 years to eliminate disparities in observational networks, monitoring, data sharing, forecasting and communications capacities and thereby improve the service delivery of all Members – the service provision gap is widening. Today, the Secretariat aims to use objective capacity assessments to develop more tailored subregional and national education and training programs that are responsive to Members’ specific needs.

All National Meteorological Hydrological Services (NMHSs) aim to fully address societal need for a wide range of quality weather, climate and water services. But many NMHSs still require basic training programs that address broad organizational needs as well as specific individual hands-on staff training to develop skillsets that are necessary to provide a minimum level of service. The WMO Education and Training Programme empowers individual Members to add value and play a role in improving the collective operations of all Members. To achieve this goal, a new WMO competency implementation programs will target the leadership and staff of NMHSs.

The development of competency is a multi-layered process that starts with basic education and runs through to on-the-job and specialized targeted expert training throughout a career. Each stage has a well-defined role and is part of a continuous loop that impacts on the stability and sustainability of NMHSs and the services they provide. NMHSs need to fully understand the concept of competency to create and implement an effective competency framework. NMHSs leadership, who define organizational goals and objectives and related competency requirements, need to carry out objective competency assessments to identify training needs and to ascertain that training programs provide maximum value to employees and NMHSs. Thus, WMO has prioritized the development of competency training for NMHS leadership and co-development of qualitative training programs that serve assessed needs.

But the true strength the WMO competency programs will lie in authentic implementation, according to subregional and national needs and particularities. This authentication will go as far down as the specifications in each job description to define competencies that correspond with the associated performance criteria. Staff cannot be expected to deliver services competently if they do not have the relevant qualifications and training to perform the tasks in their job descriptions. Thus, the existing WMO competency frameworks and guidelines for developing sustainable competent management and staff in NMHSs will be updated and continuously improved in response to NMHS management needs assessments.

A sustainable approach also requires continuous authentic training to maintain and further develop competencies. Few organizations have the required budgetary resources to support that. Internal, on-the-job, training by staff for staff has provided a solution. WMO Members also have many opportunities to complement their internal training at WMO Regional Education and Training Centres that offer online and in-person hands-on training sessions with experts from around the world.

The continuously improved WMO competency and education and training programs will equip NMHSs with the confidence and the ability to adapt to ever-changing realities. However, NMHSs must take the lead in assessing needs and competences for such programs to be authentic and connected to organizational realities.