Designing and Localising a Climate Services Information System for Impact-Based Forecasting in Lesotho

Lesotho faces increasingly frequent climate-related hazards, yet a persistent operational gap remains between meteorological forecasts and sector-ready, impact-based advisories. This paper aims to bridge that gap by designing, localising, and evaluating the Climate Services Information System (CSIS), a national digital platform that operationalises impact-based forecasting within Lesotho’s multi-hazard early warning architecture. Using an agile systems engineering approach, we elicited requirements through multi-sector engagement (meteorology, disaster management, and line ministries), translated these into SOP-aligned workflows, and implemented a modular solution that integrates a Nextcloud-based collaboration workspace with a GeoNode-based dissemination and archiving layer, backed by PostgreSQL. Key lessons learnt include the value of encoding institutional approval chains into enforceable digital workflows, maintaining clear governance boundaries between internal co-production and public dissemination, and selecting adaptable open-source components that can be hosted locally and tuned for constrained connectivity. CSIS strengthens structured collaboration and transparency in advisory production while enabling faster dissemination of validated, impact-based products. Results from role-based User Acceptance Testing on production-grade infrastructure show 100% system availability, 2.59s dashboard load time, 93% end-to-end workflow completion, support for 28 concurrent users, and 100% automated publication success to GeoNode, with only four non-critical issues encountered and resolved during testing.