Our project team just spent three fun and highly productive days together in Addis. About 30 people participated in interactive discussions and presentations of recent work and future plans. Some of the teams even met on the days before and after the main meeting – this shows dedication!!

Highlights from the meeting included:

• The Director of EMI – Ethiopia Meteorological Institute – opened the meeting and gave us a very interesting tour of their new offices in Addis. It was great to see that ample space is dedicated to training and capacity activities!
• A presentation by Croix-Rouge Madagascar of the EVCA – Enhanced Vulnerability and Capacity Assessment – that they performed last year. Thousands of households participated in this assessment.
• Similarly, CMI presented the results of a baseline assessment in the communities that we’ll be working with in Madagascar, highlighting the need for early actions related to floods and tropical cyclones.
• Several partners, including EMI, ICPAC, and NORCE, told us about the context on the ground in the Awash Basin in terms of flood risk. We don’t have any direct engagement with communities there; our link is through the extended peer community, which represents organisations and individuals with stakes and responsibilities related to floods.
• Although the meeting was dominated by interactive discussions, we enjoyed six flash talks (5 minutes) focusing on recent research results.
• On the second day, we spent three fun hours on a co-production session led by the Met Office. This included games, case studies, and group work focusing on current and idealised governance structures for flood events.
• A natural next session was centred on our testbed sessions for Madagascar. Led by NCAS and ECMWF, this coincided with an actual tropical cyclone moving towards Madagascar from the east!
• The last session on Day 2 aimed to foster a discussion about potential interventions in Madagascar starting next year. This incorporated findings from the EVCA and baseline survey.
• On Day 3, we discussed our monitoring, evaluation, and learning framework, potential policy briefs, a possible science–policy event in Brussels, and upcoming deliverables and milestones.

Our next project meeting will likely be held in Madagascar in April 2027.