ENGAGED COMMUNITY
Closing global weather and climate observation gaps takes more than financing. It requires countries, technical experts and international partners working together, combining their expertise and resources to build and sustain observing systems that benefit everyone.
SOFF COMMUNITY IN NUMBERS
64
Met Offices
supported by SOFF
20
active Peer Advisors
from advanced National Meteorological and Hydrological Services
8
Implementing Entities
United Nations agencies and Multilateral Development Banks
Peer Support Builds Trust
SOFF's Peer Advisors are advanced National Meteorological and Hydrological Services that work directly with national teams to identify observation gaps, develop plans to close them and provide technical support through implementation.
Twenty meteorological services are now actively engaged as Peer Advisors, bringing decades of operational experience to the SOFF community.
And expertise increasingly travels between countries facing similar challenges. Through South–South cooperation, the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet), for example, is advising countries across West Africa on meeting internationally agreed observing requirements.
SOFF Peer Advisors
Argentina
Australia
Austria
China
Denmark
Finland
Germany
Iceland
India
Indonesia
Morocco
The Netherlands
New Zealand
Nigeria
Norway
Portugal
South Africa
Spain
Switzerland
United Kingdom
Implementing Partners Multiply Impact
SOFF works currently through eight Implementing Entities: United Nations agencies and Multilateral Development Banks that channel finance and manage investment grants in close collaboration with countries and Peer Advisors.
Countries choose their Implementing Entity from among the organizations that express interest in supporting them, through a process facilitated by the SOFF Secretariat. This partnership begins during the Readiness Phase, helping ensure that national plans provide a sound basis for investment.
They also help connect SOFF investments with wider development and resilience programmes, creating opportunities to strengthen observations as part of larger investments rather than as stand-alone projects.
SOFF Implementing Entities
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
International Fund for Agricultural Development
Islamic Development Bank
Inter American Development Bank
United Nation Development Programme
United Nations Environment Programme
World Food Programme
World Bank
Technical Expertise Underpins Results
The World Meteorological Organization serves as SOFF’s Technical Authority, guiding countries, Peer Advisors and Implementing Entities translate internationally agreed observing standards into practice. It reviews national observation gap analyses and plans, provides technical guidance and independently verifies whether countries’ stations meet Global Basic Observing Network requirements.
In 2026, SOFF strengthened this partnership by expanding WMO’s technical support during the Investment Phase. This brings additional expertise to help countries address implementation challenges and deliver observations that meet international standards and are shared globally.
Collaboration and Complementarity
In 2026, SOFF continued to translate its Framework for Collaboration with climate funds into coordinated country support. Partnerships with the Climate Risk and Early Warning Systems (CREWS) initiative and the Green Climate Fund (GCF) connect SOFF’s investments in observations with wider efforts to strengthen forecasting, early warnings and climate resilience.
This complementarity is built into investment planning. In Nepal, the SOFF funding proposal submitted in 2026 links planned improvements to observing networks with GCF-supported work on glacial lake outburst flood warnings and CREWS support for forecasting and early warning coordination. It also identifies opportunities to share technical staff and project management capacity.
Such coordination helps countries bring different sources of expertise and finance together around national priorities. SOFF strengthens the observation foundation, while complementary programmes help turn better data into warnings and services that communities can use.
Spotlight in the Pacific
For Pacific Island countries, where vast ocean areas separate small and often remote ground-based observing networks, regional cooperation is a matter of survival. Difficult transport links make maintenance costly, salt and severe weather damage equipment, and specialist skills are scarce. Sharing expertise and resources can help countries keep their networks operating.
SOFF supports 14 Pacific countries, including four already in the Investment Phase, with USD 33.4 million in approved funding. Coordinating equipment choices, training and maintenance across countries can help address shared operational challenges and ensure that these investments deliver sustained observations over the long term.
SOFF and the Weather Ready Pacific program are working in complementarity to address these challenges. The partnership, formalized at COP29 in November 2024, provides a foundation for aligning support around countries’ priorities and drawing on existing regional expertise.
Pacific countries reinforced this direction in September 2026. At its eighth meeting, the Pacific Meteorological Council called for accelerated SOFF investments in the 10 remaining eligible Pacific countries and greater regional cooperation during implementation. It also supported developing regional arrangements to sustain observations during the Compliance Phase. At the request of participating countries, Weather Ready Pacific could be considered as a regional partner for SOFF’s Compliance Phase, supporting agreed shared functions such as maintenance, training and spare-parts management.
These efforts form part of SOFF’s broader regional, subregional and multi-country approach, adopted by the Steering Committee in October 2026 for the Investment and Compliance Phases across its portfolio. Countries can choose which activities to coordinate while retaining ownership of their national networks. In the Pacific, a follow-up workshop in 2027 will help countries and partners put this approach into practice.
Photos: Pacific Meteorololgical Council, 2026.
Photos: Water at the Heart of Climate Action Learning Assembly, 2026. Climate Centre
Water At The Heart Of Climate Action
From weather observations to action on the ground, effective early warnings depend on many pieces working together.
Thanks to the support of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Water at the Heart of Climate Action initiative strengthens this chain across the Nile Basin. Led by the Netherlands Red Cross, it brings together SOFF, WMO, UNDRR, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre. Working with national institutions and local communities, the initiative connects observations, forecasting and preparedness to help protect lives and livelihoods from floods and droughts.
SOFF focuses on the foundation: strengthening the weather observations on which reliable forecasts and warnings depend. Through the initiative, SOFF supports Ethiopia, Rwanda, South Sudan and Uganda to generate and internationally share essential weather and climate data—helping communities anticipate risks and act before disasters strike.
Beyond GBON - Joining Forces For Systematic Observations
Systematic weather and climate observations are the foundation of weather forecasting, early warning systems, climate monitoring, risk assessment, and a wide range of decisions across society and the economy. Yet the global observing system faces persistent observation gaps, fragmented and short-term financing, ageing infrastructure, and limited visibility among the decision-makers responsible for sustaining it.
In 2026, SOFF and the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) joined forces to explore the creation of a multi-stakeholder partnership for the development of a Global State of Systematic Observation report to widely communicate the fundamental importance of systematic observation, through GCOS assess the state of observation, demonstrate the socio-economic benefits of closing today’s observation gaps, and create the foundation for scaled up financing of observation. The inception workshop, held in September in Geneva and online, brought together around 100 participants from 65 institutions.
Discussions pointed towards developing a broad and inclusive partnership that would strengthen existing efforts and build new connections with the overarching goal of mobilizing the sustained financing needed to safeguard and strengthen the global observing system. The partnership would work towards this in a phased manner by initially focusing on developing a State, Benefits and Financing of Systematic Weather and Climate Observation report and a partners engagement strategy.
Photos: Inception Workshop, 2026
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