Strategic Communication Team Meeting -Highlights
The Strategic Communication Team held a productive meeting on January 20, 2025, to align on communication strategies related to climate and health risks. A key focus was on strengthening collaboration between WHO and WMO to raise awareness about the health impacts of extreme weather events. The team proposed launching a lecture series to cover critical topics such as heat-related mortality, climate disinformation, and the intersection of health and climate change, with suggestions to include health-related themes.
The meeting also highlighted the restructuring of the team into a Regional Strategic Communication Network, aimed at improving coordination and sharing best practices for communication to support transfer of research into operations across organizations. Efforts to include EUMETSAT and EUMETNET in regional communication were discussed, along with leveraging existing UN communication networks for better outreach. The team reviewed WHO’s upcoming initiatives on climate and health, as well as developments around the IPCC’s 7th Assessment Cycle and its communication strategies.
Additionally, the team reviewed the formation of a new EC Joint Research Center communication unit to enhance policy-science engagement and develop the lecture series with multidisciplinary collaboration from scientists, policymakers, and media.
Next steps include finalizing the event calendar. Plans are also underway for the WMO RA VI Scientific Forum and the scientific lecture series.