UNIMA Joins National Initiative to Strengthen Climate Data for Climate Services

The University of Malawi (UNIMA) joined key national and international stakeholders at a high-level meeting organised by the Development Fund of Norway to engage with leadership from the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) on progress under the Agriculture Resilience through Climate Services (ARCS) programme and emerging priorities within its artificial intelligence (AI) initiative.

The meeting, held in Blantyre on 9^th February 2026, brought together representatives from the University of Malawi, Malawi University of Science and Technology (MUST), the Department of Agricultural Extension Services, and the Development Fund country office. NORAD was represented by Lars Romundstad, Desk Officer for ARCS within the Climate Section, and Lars Andreas Lunde, Senior Advisor.

The primary objective of the meeting was twofold: to provide an update on the implementation of the ARCS programme, particularly its AI-enabled advisory components; and to examine how issues emerging from recent technical discussions present a strategic investment opportunity for strengthening the delivery of climate information services through Malawi’s government institutions.

During the meeting, Dr Dackson Masiyano of the University of Malawi presented on the role of Enhancing National Climate Services (ENACTS) as Malawi’s national climate data infrastructure. He explained that ENACTS functions as a governed institutional workflow that anchors climate information in observed data, diagnoses bias prior to correction, regulates how datasets are blended, and enforces independent validation before public release.

Dr Masiyano emphasised that this approach strengthens national capacity, enables structured learning through historical climate simulations (hindcasts), and provides a credible foundation for downstream applications including AI-enabled climate advisories without overstating what the underlying data can reliably support.

NORAD has a long history of cooperation with the University of Malawi, having supported a number of initiatives in the past, such as the NORHED projects.