Opinion piece editorial by Jean Chrysostome Ngabitsinze
UN ASG and Group Director General, African Risk Capacity (ARC)

In an era where climate change is no longer a distant threat but an active disruptor of lives, livelihoods, and macroeconomic stability, Africa’s response mechanisms must be equal to the task. The escalating severity of climate events demands a fundamental shift in how we prepare and respond. As the continent transitions to proactive, predictable resilience, our tools must be of the highest calibre. Any effective disaster response mechanism must be anchored in high-quality, reliable data.

Data is not merely an administrative asset; it is the foundational currency of modern climate resilience. To position Africa on a sustainable growth trajectory envisioned in the African Union’s Agenda 2063 - "The Africa We Want", we must also urgently build and sustain a robust, sophisticated African disaster data ecosystem to serve as the foundation of all climate action.

Without ground-level data to feed into satellite models, instruments such as parametric insurance are left vulnerable to high basis risk. According to the World Meteorological Organization’s, the entire African continent, which is home to more than 1.5 billion people, only has one-eighth of the weather stations it needs¹. It also has one of the least developed weather and climate observation networks globally, therefore challenging data collection. 

During COP29 climate talks, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for urgent action to overcome the shortage of data that plagues the continent and called for more investment in producing weather information².   In his brief on Early Warning Systems for all, he remarked: “Nearly half of humanity is in the danger zone... and the people of Africa are on the front lines. Yet, we are flying blind in vast parts of the continent due to a lack of basic weather observation data."

At the African Risk Capacity (ARC), we have pioneered the shift from reactive response to preparedness by advancing disaster risk management and financing (DRMF) and parametric insurance. We prioritise the development of risk profiles, early warning systems and contingency plans. Our mandate to support African countries plan, prepare and respond to extreme weather events and disease outbreaks relies on state-of-the-art tools. However, as we scale these innovations, we must confront a fundamental truth: our response is only as good as the data that powers it.

The power of data in disaster risk management and financing 

In the DRMF landscape, data is the engine. At ARC, data is central to everything we do, from designing complex disaster risk models and defining parametric insurance triggers to implementing rapid payouts and targeting vulnerable populations. Each stage of our unique value proposition - which integrates four critical elements of preparedness: capacity building, early warning, risk pooling, and risk transfer - is heavily dependent on the quality of data at our disposal. 

During capacity building, we equip stakeholders to effectively interpret and utilize this data to leverage ARC tool. In contingency planning, robust data guarantees that emergency decisions are well-informed. Similarly, risk profiling uses historical events to accurately guide preparedness, while during risk transfer, data enables governments to determine the precise amount of risk to shift to international markets.

The benefits of high-quality, localised data are profound. Beyond enabling accurate hazard forecasting and precise impact estimation, such data allows us to design models that faithfully reconstruct past disaster events, building trust along the full value chain. Ultimately, it is the cornerstone of effective risk layering, enabling countries to strategically combine various financial instruments tailored to their unique risk profiles. At national level, accurate data also ensures that domestic policymakers can make highly informed, evidence-based decisions.

The use of high-quality impact-based early warning systems remains critical in supporting response, but these must be powered by data to ensure their accuracy and effectiveness. In addition to prompting timely response to a threat, early warning systems also trigger pre-agreed contingency plans, enabling disaster management authorities to coordinate an appropriate response.

Confronting our data deficits

Despite its obvious value, a significant "data deficit" persists across many African countries. Primarily driven by fragmented and siloed systems; valuable climate, agricultural, and socio-economic data is often scattered across various stakeholders without an interoperable architecture to link them. This is further compounded by inconsistent data quality and historical gaps. Outdated and insufficient meteorological and hydrological networks, coupled with missing loss-and-damage records, make it exceedingly difficult to customize risk models to local realities.

This deficit also creates a critical "last-mile" bottleneck. Even when sophisticated risk models perform flawlessly and payouts are successfully triggered, outdated or incomplete beneficiary lists and social protection registries can stall shock-responsive social assistance. Ultimately, when models cannot be calibrated with reliable, localized data, "basis risk", the discrepancy between model-estimated losses and actual losses on the ground-increases, thereby slowing down the very financial mechanisms designed to offer rapid, life-saving relief.

Breaking silos: ARC’s collaborative solutions in action

We are not waiting for perfect conditions to emerge; ARC is actively working with member states to build them. Our approach is to break down institutional silos and co-create solutions with local experts.

Through our multi-disciplinary national Technical Working Groups (TWGs), we bring together experts from diverse government ministries and partner organizations to serve as an important collaborative mechanism. The TWG uses existing data to plan, prepare and respond to climate-induced and disease threats through targeted interventions, identifying critical gaps in the process.
These collaborative efforts are already yielding tangible results. For instance, our strategic partnerships with African universities to develop highly accurate "crop masks" ensure that agricultural risk models reflect actual, localised farming patterns. We are also working closely with member states to systematically dismantle data bottlenecks. In Madagascar, we facilitated targeted data-collection initiatives to precisely define parameters for drought risk modelling. Meanwhile, in Zambia and Zimbabwe, ARC has supported the digitisation of social protection registries, given the important role that shock-responsive social protection plays in facilitating the timely delivery of ARC payouts during crises.

By integrating disaster and vulnerability data collection into existing, periodic national data efforts, we are helping countries build sustainable, long-term data habits rather than relying on ad-hoc, project-based assessments.

A call to action: Building Africa’s sovereign data ecosystem

For effective climate response, we must treat disaster data as critical public infrastructure and invest in world-class tools that enable climate-smart development. To achieve this, ARC has initiated the establishment of a continental data centre, designed to strengthen technical capacity at all levels, improve the quality and availability of disaster risk data, promote seamless cross-border data sharing, and support the development of localized risk models that underpin sovereign disaster risk financing decisions.

This initiative cannot be achieved in isolation. I call upon African governments, international donors, development partners, and scientific organisations to join ARC in this strategic endeavour. In addition to financial support, we need active partners to help us build this resilient, sovereign African data ecosystem. By investing in robust data systems today, we reduce basis risk, build confidence in early warning systems, ensuring that every Dollar spent on disaster response is guided by undeniable evidence.

To realise "the Africa we want," we must equip the continent with the sophisticated, data-driven tools. This is more than just managing risk; it is about safeguarding our communities, protecting development gains, and securing the prosperous, climate-resilient future envisioned in Agenda 2063.
 

[1] https://climateinafrica.com/from-data-deficit-to-action-inside-the-launch-of-climate-in-africa/
[2] https://www.cnbcafrica.com/2024/africa-has-worlds-least-developed-weather-observation-network