Ignitia Climate Advisory (SMS weather advice for smallholders).

Overview

Ignitia is an external startup and social enterprise supported by the World Food Programme (WFP) Innovation Accelerator that has developed a unique weather forecasting model to serve smallholder farmers across sub-Saharan Africa. Founded in 2010 by a research team drawn from universities and research institutions including NASA, Ignitia spent four years developing its proprietary forecasting technology. The system uses an advanced physics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) predictive model to deliver highly accurate, localized weather predictions and climate-smart agricultural advice to farmers. The core problem Ignitia addresses is the unreliability of conventional weather forecasts in sub-Saharan Africa, where more than 96 percent of cultivated land is rain-fed and changing rainfall patterns due to climate change represent a significant concern. Weather accounts for up to 80 percent of the yield gap experienced among farmers, making reliable weather information crucial for better yields, reduced costs and risks, and climate resilience.

Technically, the forecasting system — branded as iska — combines proprietary algorithms, uninterrupted three-dimensional multisource data, and predictive artificial intelligence developed by a team of meteorologists, physicists, and mathematicians. Ignitia has modelled physics suited for meso scales with new parameterisation schemes and ensemble methodology, tailored for tropical conditions with different data assimilation and initialization techniques. The model does not require ground weather stations, relying instead on geospatial and remote sensing data. The iska system generates GPS-specific two-day, monthly, and seasonal forecasts, which have proven to be 84 percent accurate in West Africa compared with 39 percent accuracy achieved by global forecasts such as those available from major international broadcasters.

The service delivers forecasts to farmers via SMS in a text-lite format that can be received on any basic mobile phone. The SMS message design was refined through 120 trials, resulting in an intuitive seven-keyword format that can be comprehended even by populations with low literacy levels. Each forecast is tailored to the specific farmer's location through an automated application that fetches the most common GPS coordinate for each subscriber. Farmers receive daily text messages on rainfall forecasts or weekly climate-smart agricultural advice tied to their location and crop. An app also allows access to richer weather risk content for subscribers such as field agents. The service is delivered in partnership with mobile network operators and other partners along the agricultural supply chain.

In the context of Mali, the WFP partnered with Ignitia to deliver hyper-local rainfall and forecast advice via SMS to smallholder farmers. Together with WFP in Mali, 5,481 smallholder farmers received critical weather updates and advice from Ignitia, with reported improvements in resilience and yields of about 10 percent. The messages delivered to farmers are advisory in nature, with final decisions on agricultural activities remaining with the farmers themselves.

Globally, Ignitia operates across 11 countries — including Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, and Togo — and has provided services to 2.7 million smallholder farmers to date, of which approximately 700,000 are recurrent users. According to a 2021 study conducted with a sample group in Ghana, 92 percent of users receiving iska SMS rainfall messages experienced yield increases, 91 percent experienced income increases, and two out of three male farmers changed to better agricultural practices. In 2024, Ignitia's collaboration with WFP expanded to Ghana, where the venture signed a Long-Term Agreement with WFP Ghana for the next three years. The WFP Innovation Accelerator, based in Munich, Germany, provides support to Ignitia as part of its portfolio of innovation ventures. Ignitia's partners and investors include Novastar, IKEA Social Entrepreneurship, HACK VC, FINCA Ventures, Norrsken Foundation, and others.

The Ignitia team includes a Regional Director for Africa based at Ignitia AB, partnerships and business development staff at Ignitia, and an Innovation Ventures Project Lead at the WFP Innovation Accelerator who oversees the collaboration.

Classification

Programme Details

WFP Mali partners with Ignitia AB to deliver hyper-local weather forecasts and climate-smart agricultural advice via SMS to smallholder farmers, enabling them to make better-informed decisions about agricultural activities to improve yields and climate resilience.

Implementation Details

Risk & Oversight

Deployment & Outcomes

Sources

1. SRC-003-MLI-003 UNDP (2015). Using SMS texts to provide weather forecasts for small farmers in West Africa. ReliefWeb. Available at: https://reliefweb.int/report/world/using-sms-texts-provide-weather-forecasts-small-farmers-west-africa (Accessed 23 Mar 2026).
   https://reliefweb.int/report/world/using-sms-texts-provide-weather-forecasts-small-farmers-west-africa
2. SRC-002-MLI-003 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) (n.d.). Digital X Solution: Ignitia. UNDP Digital X. Available at: https://digitalx.undp.org/catalogs/ignitia.html (Accessed 23 Mar 2026).
   https://digitalx.undp.org/catalogs/ignitia.html
3. SRC-001-MLI-003 WFP Innovation (2025). Ignitia. Munich: World Food Programme Innovation Accelerator. Available at: https://innovation.wfp.org/project/ignitia (Accessed 31 Oct 2025).
   https://innovation.wfp.org/project/ignitia