LaunchPAD for a Climate Model Evaluation Hub for Africa - Future Climate for Africa (FCFA) Accountable Grant

The Future Climate for Africa (FCFA) programme has made substantial progress in understanding the African climate and has developed methodologies to evaluate the regional climate processes and impact-relevant indices which matter locally. As part of the FCFA Accountable Grant funded by the UK Government's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), previously referred to as the Department for International Development (DfID) (IATI identifier GB-1-203835-107), the LaunchPAD project was initiated as one of the three key outputs to continue the legacy of the broader FCFA programme (IATI identifier GB-1-203835-102). The LaunchPAD is the first phase of the Climate Model Evaluation Hub for Africa and has been established to build upon the novel science findings and methods to extend the work to more regions and systems, and to embed tools into automated software that will fast-track the understanding of how well climate models simulate climate dynamics in African regions. The establishment of the Hub was made possible by building on existing FCFA research networks through researchers at the University of Oxford, University of Yaounde I, University of Nairobi, University of Cape Town, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, and the Met Office, showcasing the strong legacy and importance of FCFA partnerships between British and African research institutions.