There exists a clear need to facilitate the improvement of systematic observation of the climate system in developing countries. With this objective in mind, in November 1999 the Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change invited the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) Secretariat to organize a Regional Workshop Program. The central purpose of the program the GCOS Secretariat subsequently established is to initiate processes in developing regions that will lead to real and substantial improvements in global climate observing systems. The specific objectives of each workshop are to assess the contribution of each region to GCOS baseline networks; to help participants understand guidelines for reporting on systematic observations to the UNFCCC; to identify national and regional needs and deficiencies for climate data (including needs for assessing climate impacts, conducting vulnerability analyses, and undertaking adaptation studies); and to initiate the development of a regional Action Plan for improving climate observing systems.

GCOS is now a little over halfway through the program, having held six of ten planned regional workshops (Pacific Islands, Eastern and Southern Africa, Central America and the Caribbean, East and Southeast Asia, Western and Central Africa, and South America) and having assisted five of these six regions to date in completing their Regional Action Plans. The paper/presentation reviews the key elements of the Regional Workshop Program and discusses common climate observing system deficiencies and needs that have been identified at the workshops. It then offers a preliminary appraisal of the utility of the program and suggests some lessons learned to date. Finally, it addresses one of the concerns common to all ten regions, the issue of implementation of Action Plans.