2017-02-2823:00h

Burkina Faso – Ouagadougou

L’atelier de « Test du réseau et validation des protocoles du projet APTE-21 » s’adresse aux partenaires traditionnels du projet (DGM, ANACIM, ENDA, bureaux des bassins WASCAL de Dano et Bolgatanga, DDA, HydroScience, CIRAD, LOCEAN, IRD), le conseil scientifique FSP-AGRICORA et autres acteurs potentiels (EcoClimaSol, Airtel/TELMOB, ORANGE, MTN). Il est également ouvert au media et autres personnes ressources dont les contributions serviront les objectifs des travaux.
Condition de participation

La participation à cet atelier se fait sur invitation par le bureau de la coordination à WASCAL Competence Center (WASCAL CoC). Pour toute information complémentaire, il faut envoyer un courriel à l’adresse suivante : Dr. Seyni SALACK, Coordinateur du projet APTE-21, apte21.agricora(at)gmail.com, salack.s(at)wascal.org ou appeler le +226-25-37-54-23/29/39.

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The Capacity Building Department of the West African Science Service Centre for Climate Change and Land Use, WASCAL, has organized a five-day intensive workshop on climate change impact, mitigation and adaptation for fifteen scientists drawn from the ministries and government departments of environment, agriculture, water resources, meteorology, space and environmental protection agencies from Ghana, Benin, Togo and Nigeria.

The workshop which was organized at the headquarters of WASCAL in Accra is the first in the series of workshops lined-up by WASCAL under the sponsorship of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany (BMBF).

The workshop was part of WASCAL’s strategic vision to extend its capacity building beyond its graduate studies programmes run in partnership with ten lead universities in West Africa.

In an interview with Professor Janet Adelegan, WASCAL’s Director of Capacity Building Programme and workshop coordinator at WASCAL, she highlighted the key objectives of the workshop;

“The essence of this workshop was to educate West African managers and scientists in relevant government agencies on the implications of climate change variability on livelihood, adaptation and mitigation strategies in West Africa”

“Also, the workshop was designed to promote linkage between research and practice, create an environment for the exchange of experience, identify research priorities, and highlight capacity building needs for policy research in Climate Science in West Africa”. She expounded.

WASCAL seeks to strengthen the existing human capacity of member countries to allow them participate in the on-going global discourse on climate change and respond to current and future adaptation and mitigation challenges. Its training programmes are intended to build the capacity of mid-level scientists and policy analysts, and produce first class students interested in careers in academia.

The Capacity Building Department of the West African Science Service Centre for Climate Change and Land Use, WASCAL, has organized a five-day intensive workshop on climate change impact, mitigation and adaptation for fifteen scientists drawn from the ministries and government departments of environment, agriculture, water resources, meteorology, space and environmental protection agencies from Ghana, Benin, Togo and Nigeria.

The workshop which was organized at the headquarters of WASCAL in Accra is the first in the series of workshops lined-up by WASCAL under the sponsorship of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany (BMBF).

The workshop was part of WASCAL’s strategic vision to extend its capacity building beyond its graduate studies programmes run in partnership with ten lead universities in West Africa.

In an interview with Professor Janet Adelegan, WASCAL’s Director of Capacity Building Programme and workshop coordinator at WASCAL, she highlighted the key objectives of the workshop;

“The essence of this workshop was to educate West African managers and scientists in relevant government agencies on the implications of climate change variability on livelihood, adaptation and mitigation strategies in West Africa”

“Also, the workshop was designed to promote linkage between research and practice, create an environment for the exchange of experience, identify research priorities, and highlight capacity building needs for policy research in Climate Science in West Africa”. She expounded.

WASCAL seeks to strengthen the existing human capacity of member countries to allow them participate in the on-going global discourse on climate change and respond to current and future adaptation and mitigation challenges. Its training programmes are intended to build the capacity of mid-level scientists and policy analysts, and produce first class students interested in careers in academia.

The Capacity Building Department of the West African Science Service Centre on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use, WASCAL, has organised a five-day intensive workshop on climate change impact, mitigation and adaptation for fifteen scientists drawn from the ministries and government departments of environment, agriculture, water resources, meteorology, space and environmental protection agencies from Ghana, Benin, Togo and Nigeria.

The workshop which was organized at the headquarters of WASCAL in Accra is the first in the series of workshops lined-up by WASCAL under the sponsorship of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany (BMBF).
The workshop was part of WASCAL’s strategic vision to extend its capacity building beyond its graduate studies programmes run in partnership with ten lead universities in West Africa.

In an interview with Professor Janet Adelegan, WASCAL’s Director of Capacity Building Programme and workshop coordinator at WASCAL, she highlighted the key objectives of the workshop;

“The essence of this workshop was to educate West African managers and scientists in relevant government agencies on the implications of climate change variability on livelihood, adaptation and mitigation strategies in West Africa”

“Also, the workshop was designed to promote linkage between research and practice, create an environment for the exchange of experience, identify research priorities, and highlight capacity building needs for policy research in Climate Science in West Africa”. She expounded.

WASCAL seeks to strengthen the existing human capacity of member countries to allow them participate in the on-going global discourse on climate change and respond to current and future adaptation and mitigation challenges. Its training programmes are intended to build the capacity of mid-level scientists and policy analysts, and produce first class students interested in careers in academia.

The West African Science Service Centre on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL), in collaboration with NASA and the University of Missouri – Kansas City, will be conducting a Capacity Building Workshop on „Interdisciplinary Remote Sensing, Modeling, and Validation of Environmental Processes“ from June 12 -23, 2017. This workshop, primarily sponsored by the International Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) and WASCAL, is aimed at enabling that extensive knowledge base, capacity, and results developed under major international research programmes/projects to be transferred to young professionals and graduate students in West Africa. By interacting very closely, during a period of two weeks, with experienced professionals in space-based interdisciplinary research, which is in its infancy in West Africa, these young scientists will be equipped to pursue similar collaborative scientific research paradigms within their regions. This will provide an excellent avenue to maximize the societal benefits that result from such interdisciplinary research efforts. Major American and European space missions will be addressed, including: Landsat, Terra, Aqua, Aura, Meteosat, Calipso, and SMAP.

WASCAL is a large-scale research-focused Climate Service Centre designed to help tackle severe challenges posed by climate change and thereby enhance the resilience of human and environmental systems to climate change and increased variability. It does so by strengthening the research infrastructure and capacity in West Africa related to climate change and by pooling the expertise of ten West African countries and Germany. The WASCAL Capacity Building Programme through the Graduate studies programme helps to educate the next generation of scientists in West Africa to attain an intimate knowledge of different climate related issues in order to help the region develop suitable management strategies. WASCAL’s graduate studies programmes (GRPs) are implemented in ten leading Universities across 10 West African countries.

Venue: GRP Climate Change and Land Use Conference Room, Kwame Nkurumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana.

Date: June 12-23, 2017

Target Group: The workshop is for advanced doctoral students and early career scientists drawn from all countries in the West Africa sub-region and it will focus on advanced analysis of satellite and climate data for multi-sectoral applications, including climate, agriculture and water resources.

Candidates applying for the COSPAR workshop are expected to have earned a PhD, or at least a Masters degree and should be working or registered in a doctoral program in West Africa.

Other general requirements include:

1. Gender-balanced selection decision.

2. Proficiency in English Language.
Partners

WASCAL, NASA and University of Missouri. We have also assembled a team of world-class instructors from Africa, Europe and the US who have all agreed to participate as Lecturers.
Finances

Limited spaces available for sponsored participants. Tuition and workshop fees will be waived for sponsored participants. However self-sponsored participants will have to cover the full cost of participation which include travels, accommodation and subsistence in addition to a modest registration fee of 100 US dollars.
Application Procedure

A letter of expression of interest to attend the workshop and detailed curriculum vitae should be sent by email to:

The Director of Capacity Building
WASCAL, CSIR Office Complex
6 Agostino Neto Road Airport Residential Area
PMB CT504, Cantonments
Accra- GHANA

Email: capacitybp@wascal.org, copy: weto.s(at)wascal.org; odame.g(at)wascal.org
Deadline

All applications/expression of interest must be received by March 15, 2017

Please see details at the workshop website: http://feer.gsfc.nasa.gov/meetings/COSPAR2017/

A fundamental goal of WASCAL is the improvement of West African livelihoods by supporting research, capacity building and decision making with cutting-edge knowledge on climate change and adapted land use. Consequently, many research and services provision activities of WASCAL focus on the development, extension and validation of research-based methods, technologies and adaptation options in the field of hydrology, meteorology, agriculture, biodiversity, remote sensing, and climate modelling amongst others.

In light of the consolidation phase of the core research program (CRP), the WASCAL Competence Centre in Burkina Faso (WASCAL CoC) is jointly organizing a hydro-climate & remote sensing training course in partnership with its German partners KIT/IMK-IFU, University of Augsburg, DLR and DKRZ.
WHO CAN ATTEND?

WASCAL students and scientists but also up to 10 additional seats are available for other students and early career scientists working in the field of meteorology, hydrology and remote sensing.
SESSIONS & FACILITATORS:

• SESSION I- Climate and Eddy-covariance stations of the Core Research Program: Specifications, data availability & maintenance (Berger S, Salack S)
• SESSION II- Station-based precipitation database, related gridded datasets and their retrieval from WADI (Bliefernicht J, Salack S)
• SESSION III- Introduction to algorithms to retrieve precipitation information from commercial microwave link: Fundamentals, data acquisition system & algorithms (Boose Y)
• SESSION IV- Remote sensing: Selected methods and tools for derivation of land surface characteristics for West Africa, and introduction of WASCAL-EUMETCAST antenna (Gessner U, Forkuor G)
• SESSION V- Climate model data and metadata: planting, growing and harvesting in the WASCAL Data Discovery and CERA/WDCC Portals (Hamann I)
• SESSION VI- Regionally adapted and fully coupled Regional Climate Model simulations (WRF, WRF-HYDRO description, data needs, case studies) (Kunstmann H)
• SESSION VII- An analysis of high resolution regional climate simulation results and its retrieval from WADI (Olusegun C)
• SESSION VIII- Fundamental objectives and principles of RCM bias correction (Laux P, Lorenz M)

TRAINING COST

The training course is free. Funding for the course covers only training, coffee breaks and lunch for participants. Therefore, every participant is expected to bear the cost of his/her transportation, breakfast, dinner and accommodation.
OTHER CONDITIONS FOR APPLICANTS

Beside WINDOWS operating system, the potential participants must also be familiar with Linux/Unix operating system. Having a basic programming skill is an advantage (e.g. MATLAB, FORTRAN, PYTHON, bash scripting, etc.). To participate, please send a motivation letter and an updated curriculum vitae (1 page max.) to sylla.b(at)wascal.org and cc to salack.s(at)wascal.org with the subject line “CoC March training” before 28th of February 2017, 16h30 GMT.

During the coffee and lunch breaks there will be time for poster presentations and scientific discussions. The participants should therefore prepare and bring a poster to the training course showing their current research.
DATE & VENUE

The training sessions will be held from 14th to 21st of March 2017 in the Conference room of WASCAL Competence Centre, Blvd Moammar El-Khadafi, 06 BP 9507 Ouagadougou 06, Burkina Faso. The language of instruction will be English.
CONTACT

For more information please contact commey.n(at)wascal.org
TRAINING AGENDA

Table 1: Provisional schedule of hydro-climate & remote sensing training sessions at WASCAL Competence Center, 14-21 March 2017, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

HYDRO-CLIMATE AND REMOTE SENSING TRAINING GENERAL INFORAMTION

WASCAL and the Ministry of Higher Education, Scientific Research and Innovation of Burkina Faso(MESRSI), have signed a memorandum of understanding that will see the Government of Burkina Faso supporting the construction and sustainable maintenance of the WASCAL Competence Centre in Ouagadougou.

The short ceremony which took place in Bonn, Germany, was put under the high authority of the State Secretary of the German Federal Ministry of High Education and Research, Dr. Schutte and the Minister of High Education and Research of Burkina Faso, Prof. Sawadogo Michel Filiga. It was attended by Mr. Wilfried Kraus from German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) surrounded by other high officials of the Division in charge of innovation at BMBF and staff from Pt-DLR and by the Board Chair, Mr. Peter Justice Dery and the Executive Director of WASCAL, Dr. Laurent Sedogo.

By the MoU, MESRSI will provide competent staff by means of secondment as well as support WASCAL in its fundraising strategies with regional and international donors. The ministry, through the University Ouaga, will also make available plots of land of about 3 and half hectares amounting to about EUROS 305,343.5 near University Ouaga as site for the construction of the building complex of the Competence Centre which will serve as the scientific and academic centre of excellence for WASCAL.

WASCAL, will in turn allow for the use of its auditorium and classes by the University Ouaga to run the international Master’s programme on Climate Change and Informatics which is already subject to an agreement between WASCAL and the university.

In his speech, the Board Chairman Mr. Peter Dery, stated on behalf of WASCAL the importance of the signing which marks a take-off of the construction of Competence Centre.

“We at WASCAL have been looking forward to this very important milestone. And so today is a very remarkable day for us, and we hope that the journey of greater relationship between the Competence Centre and the Scientific Community of Burkina Faso and particularly the University of Ouagadougou has just began”.

He also thanked BMBF for their continuous support, citing the numerous financial support in carrying out the regional vision of becoming a think-tank in climate research and capacity building in West Africa.

Prof. Sawadogo, on behalf of the government for Burkina Faso reassured his full commitment to support the Competence Centre in its future development.

The Competence Centre of WASCAL is the scientific wing of the organization, responsible for research programmes and climate service provision for improving the resilience of land use systems in the face of climate change; securing the flows of key ecosystem services like food productions; and securing and improving human livelihoods.