The Bangladesh Academy for Climate Services (BACS) has been launched.
Environmental experts launched BACS at the conference room of the Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD) in Dhaka on Sunday.
Speaking at the event, Director of International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) Dr Saleemul Haque said, they decided to start the academy after realizing that there was a gap between the climate information disseminators and users.
“There is a difference between creating information, making it available, and using it,” said Research Staff Associate at International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) Melody Braun.
She said the participants in the courses offered by the academy should have a strong desire to use climate services in their own fields or organizations in the future.
Speakers also added that the academy was born out of stakeholder consultations as part of (IRI) ACToday project.
BACS has been created to open trans-sectoral and multi-stakeholder dialogue on climate services to identify existing initiatives, challenges and opportunities.
They will also create graduate level curriculum to train a new generation of weather and climate sector experts with the skills necessary to face the uncertainties of the coming decades.
BACS will offer one-week long courses, where participants will have to generate and present a basic assessment of climate sensitive problems specific to their sector, and preliminary action plans for developing climate services to address these needs.
The courses offered by the institution are intended for early to mid-level professionals and students who are working in fields related to agriculture and food systems, disaster preparedness and response, public health. As wellaligned in other fields who would like to actively engage in defining needs and developing climate services for their sectors in Bangladesh.
International Centre for Climate Change and Development(ICCCAD), International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), IRI), and the BMD are the partners of the academy which is being hosted at the Independent University of Bangladesh (IUB).
Director of the Bangladesh Meteorological Department Shamsuddin Ahmedawas present as the chair of the event. Among others, Dr Timothy J Krupnik, systems agronomist of CIMMYT, was also present at the event.
Originally this news was published on August 6, 2018 at Dhaka Tribune By SM Abrar Aowsaf .