The Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States in the region, although disproportionately affected by climate impacts, have significant gaps in observation systems and lack resources and institutional mechanisms to address the gap.

Non-GTS (Global Telecommunication System) data are shared by RIMES member states through regional data sharing mechanisms to ensure the availability of local data for improving forecast products. RIMES collects data from NMHSs, performs data quality control, and distributes quality-checked data to ECMWF. ECMWF in return provides high-resolution forecast data to NHMS through the RIMES platform.