Pre-announcement: African-European call for proposals “Climate Services for Risk Reduction in West Africa (CS4RRA)” – 2026

West African nations face pressing climate-related challenges, including environmental degradation, rainfall variability, extreme heatwaves, floods, and declining agricultural productivity. The accelerating impacts of climate change, along with socio-economic developments like population growth and urbanization, exacerbates climate-related challenges. The initiative “Climate Services for Risk Reduction in West Africa” (CS4RRA) was launched in 2023 by European countries in collaboration with West African institutions, including ACMAD, AGRHYMET/ CILSS, WASCAL, and the African Centres of Excellence. The aim of this initiative is to enhance climate resilience through Knowledge, Innovation, and Capacity Building (KIC), leveraging achievements from previous European Union and African Union programs (e.g., Horizon 2020, Joint Programme Initiative Climate/SINCERE, Copernicus CCS).

The CS4RRA is an initiative building upon achievements and findings of previous JPI Climate activities (Flagship Africa under the SINCERE project). It follows the main results of the EU and AU programmes in advancing climate services with the ERANET for climate services - ERA4CS, the Copernicus Programme, the EIT Climate-KIC), and agreements made in the Treaty of Aachen 2019. The overall strategic aim of the CS4RRA initiative is to develop pathways to climate-resilience in Western Africa by contributing to long-term multinational cooperation. The content of the call is grounded in the series of 4 webinars and a stocktaking conference in which gaps, priorities, and critical issues related to Knowledge, Innovation, and Capacity Development needed for climate services for risk reduction in Africa have been identified. The outputs of the events are summarized in a White Paper (webinars) and reports. The thematic focus of the call comprise themes and crosscutting priorities identified in the White Paper.

The intention of the call is to:

• Strengthen the climate resilience of West Africa based on a better understanding of the impacts of climate change;
• Improve climate knowledge, capacities and services for climate risk reduction and adaptation to climate change;
• Strengthen African and European partnership.

Each proposal must address one or more of the following topics:

1. Improving Early Warning Systems (following the WMO definition);
2. Improving operational assessment and prevention of Climate Security Risks;
3. Improving financing mechanism and institutional integration of climate services.

In addition, a proposal must:

• address all three pillars of CS4RRA: Knowledge, Capacity Development, and Innovation;
• follow inter- and transdisciplinary approaches by encouraging a co-design of activities between academic and non-academic partners such as policy-makers, society and economy;
• meet specific needs related to climate change addressed by West African stakeholders;
• link research and innovation (incl. social innovation) bridging scientific excellence to social impact.

Funding organisations from Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, France, Germany, Ghana, Italy, and Norway are participating in the call. Other European countries have expressed their interest in taking part and may join in at a later stage. Eligible for funding are organizations from countries, which are represented in the Group of Funding Parties (GFP) and organisations which are located in one of the 16 West African countries, as given in the UN definition (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo; excluding United Kingdom Overseas Territory: St. Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha). More details will be provided at the launch of the call.

Eligible project consortia must comprise at least three eligible project partners, of these at least two partners have to be African institutions from two different African countries and at least one partner has to be a European institution. African leadership must be reflected in the project consortium and proposal. The maximum funding per project is 2,000,000 EUR for a maximum duration of 36 months.