ACCORD resources
Article published on 11 April 2023
last modification on 27 October 2023

by pottier

Resources

The ACCORD MoU-1 (article 7: resources) describes two categories of resources provided by Members: membership fees and human resources provided in-kind by Members. These resources are approved by the Assembly, monitored by the PM, with the help of the CSS and the MG, reported to the Assembly. Dedicated documents are produced.

RWPs and DAPs over the 5-year term of the ACCORD MoU-1

During the 5 years of MoU-1, these documents will be yearly prepared and approved, and their actions assessed:

  • The Rolling Work Plan (RWP) is a document updated every year that describes with a high level of detail the activities of the Consortium.
  • The costed Detailed Action Plan (DAP) is a document drawn up each year that describes the expenses compensated by the ACCORD budget: (i) compensation for the salary of the PM, (ii) compensation for the expenses of the management and meetings of committees (PAC and STAC meetings, LTM missions, MG meetings, PM and CSS missions, All Staff Workshop organisation), (iii) travel money for scientific visits and WWs considered with highest priority by the Management Group, (iv) other types of expenses of general interest for the Consortium and agreed by the Assembly.

The life cycle of these annual documents includes an initial development phase, followed by a phase of implementation of the planned actions, and an evaluation phase. The MG, the PM and the CSS have a leading role in all these phases. The Assembly and the Committees (PAC, STAC) are presented with these documents, make recommendations and/or assess their realisation. The actions are realised by the Partners teams and under the responsibility of the LTMs.
Although they are annual documents, they have a lifespan of 2 years, between their preparation and completion.

Rolling Work Plans

The RWP two-year process and the life-cycle of the RWP are described on the article dedicated to the TWP, that also contains the RWP adopted by the Assembly and the reports on their realisation.

Detailed Action Plans

Life-cycle of the DAP

Life cycle of a Detailed Action Plan (not taking into account the financial procedures)

Mechanism

The financial procedures were approved by the ACCORD kick-off Assembly on the 27th of November 2022: Météo-France manages the ACCORD budget via a dedicated specific account (ACCORD 3rd party account) according to the following procedure:

  • At the beginning of each year, Météo-France issues bills to collect the membership fees (amount decided by the Assembly);
  • the PM and the Consortium Scientific Secretary (CSS) finalize the costed Detailed Action Plan (DAP) based on the RWP and the partitioned budget (partitioning among the possible expenses, see MoU items 121-127) adopted by the Assembly, including proposals by the AL and LTM, and in agreement with the full MG;
  • As soon as the ACCORD 3rd party account has been provisioned, Météo-France starts payments to Members according to the DAP (reimbursements of the DAP actions, on a compensatory basis);
  • Should a Member not be able to complete a given task for which it has received a payment, this is resolved by a budget adjustment in the following year (to avoid too many financial transfers).

The Assembly also approved the compensation rates that are used for reimbursement to the Members of the actions in the DAP.

RWPs and DAPs over the 5-year term of the ACCORD MoU-1

The Directors of HIRLAM, respectively LACE, Members confirmed KNMI, respectively GeoSphere Austria, to realize all financial actions on behalf of the HIRLAM countries.

Bilateral agreements have been signed between KNMI, GeoSphere Austria and the NMSs of Algeria, Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Morocco, Portugal, Tunisia and Turkey and are valid for the MoU duration.

At the end of each year (YYYY), the Assembly formally approves of the reimbursement figures for non-executed actions during the year YYYY and of the membership fee and the partitioning of the budget for YYYY+1.

In order of maximise the rate of realisation of the DAP as requested by the 3rd Assembly , the MG and the CSS added a more flexible mechanism: with respect to the published DAP-YYYY some additional actions are discussed and approved by the MG to be ACCORD-funded in YYYY (although the reimbursement to the Members will be done with reimbursements of the DAP-YYYY+1 actions).

A document “Wiki-budget.pdf” was prepared for the LTMs and the teams with the aim of explaining the rules of the ACCORD budget, the procedure used by the MG to prepare the DAP, and proposes a F.A.Q. for travellers/hosts/LTMs.