WMO faces growing challenges in securing predictable, flexible, and sustainable funding
WMO is central to global safety, security and development, with a mission that drives the collection, analysis and dissemination of vital climate and weather data worldwide. This core mandate underpins national and regional climate action, enabling effective early warning systems, enhancing resilience, and building capacity within Member States and Territories. However, as climate risks intensify, WMO faces urgent funding shortfalls that threaten the continuation and growth of these indispensable services. In 2025, the year that WMO celebrates 75 years as a specialized agency of the United Nations, the Organization calls for both public and private sector engagement to meet the goals and targets in the WMO Strategic Plan 2024-2027 .
In 2024, voluntary contributions generated 29.4 million Swiss francs (CHF) of additional - extrabudgetary - funding for WMO. Public institutions, mostly WMO Members, provided CHF 13.5 million (46%) of that amount, while various multilateral agencies - CREWS , Adaptation Fund , World Bank , etc - provided CHF 15.8 million (54%) from for projects. In the full year of 2024, WMO signed CHF 39.7 million in new project commitments with funders, while in just five months - from January-May 2025 - an additional CHF 42.2 million has already been signed, with the total new commitments for 2025 expected to exceed CHF 100 million. While private sector income - from foundations, philanthropists, businesses and others - amounted to less than 1% of the Organization's voluntary contributions in 2024, over 20% of the new 2025 commitments are from philanthropic and corporate foundations. Support from such private sector partners is more essential than ever for WMO to deliver on its mandate.
Despite this encouraging trend in commitments, WMO faces growing challenges in securing predictable, flexible, and sustainable funding. With growing demand for early warnings, climate services and data infrastructure, the gap between ambition and available core resources remains a critical concern that will require continued and diversified resource mobilization efforts.
This Bulletin looks at some of WMO's major achievements over its first 75 years and underscores the critical need for sustained investment in its normative functions at a key juncture in the climate crisis. Five key areas of WMO normative work will be addressed:
- Global observation networks: The essential infrastructure for all weather prediction, climate monitoring, and early warning systems, providing the data backbone for climate security.
- Climate data standards and coordination: WMO protocols ensure the collection of accurate, interoperable and globally accessible climate data, facilitating informed decision-making across borders.
- Capacity building for National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs): WMO equips developing countries with the infrastructure, training and technology necessary to deliver reliable, timely climate data to their communities.
- Framework for global cooperation: The WMO Earth system approach integrates meteorological, climatological and hydrological data, uniting weather, climate and water systems across nations for the collective good.
- Early Warnings for All: WMO drives the scientific, infrastructural, and collaborative backbone needed to bring universal early warning systems to fruition, providing timely climate information that protects lives and livelihoods.
Climate change is the defining crisis of our time and its impacts are already being observed - much more quickly than feared. We are not powerless, WMO science is the basis for sustainable action. Today, that science needs funding.
An Investor Forum - Weathering the Change: Investing in WMO's Impact - is being organized in the latter half of the 2025 with an aim to:
- Mobilize capital for critical WMO-led initiatives that strengthen early warning systems, climate and water services, and the capacity of National Meteorological and Hydrological Services;
- Raise awareness of WMO's global value as a provider of trusted, science-based data and services that inform climate resilience, risk management, and long-term planning;
- Foster new partnerships with public and private actors to scale impact through innovation, co-financing, and shared solutions.
An investment in WMO is an investment in a sustainable future for all for the decades ahead.
