Governance

World Meteorological Congress assembles delegates of Members once every four years to:

• determine general policies for the fulfilment of the purposes of the Organization;
• consider membership of the Organization;
• determine the General, Technical, Financial and Staff Regulations;
• establish and coordinate the activities of constituent bodies of the Organization;
• approve long-term plans and budget for the following financial period; 
• elect the President and Vice-Presidents of the Organization and members of the Executive Council; and
• appoint the Secretary-General. 

The duties of the President and Secretary General of the Organization are defined in the WMO General Regulations contained in Basic Documents No. 1 (WMO publication number 15), which also contains the texts of the WMO Convention; the General, Staff and Financial Regulations; the text of the Agreement between the UN and WMO; the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the Specialized Agencies; and the agreement, plan of execution and protocol concluded between the Swiss Federal Council and WMO governing the latter's status in Switzerland.

This executive body of the WMO implements decisions of Congress. The Executive Council coordinates programmes, manages the budget, considers and acts on resolutions and recommendations from the regional associations and technical commissions, and studies and makes recommendations on matters affecting international meteorology and related activities. 

The Executive Council normally holds a session at least once a year, at a place and on a date to be determined by the President of the Organization after consultation with other members of the Council. Decisions are passed by a two-thirds majority vote.

The Executive Council is comprised a president, three vice-presidents, the six regional association presidents and 27 directors of National Meteorological or Hydrometeorological Services elected by Congress. Each member has only one vote. Information on the Members of Executive Council, Working Groups and their members, and Executive Council activities are available in the WMO Community Platform.

Six regional associations are responsible for the coordination of meteorological, hydrological and related activities within their respective Regions:

• Region I (Africa)
• Regional II (Asia)
• Region III (South America)
• Region IV (North America, Central America and the Caribbean)
• Region V (South-West Pacific)
• Region VI (Europe).

Regional Associations meet in their respective regions every two years to define regional priorities and activities and, at every second meeting, to elect a new Regional Association president and vice-president. The president of each Regional Association is an ex officio member of the Executive Council. The president of each regional association is an ex officio member of the Executive Council.

Both the World Meteorological Congress and Exective Council have created advisory and coordination bodies to streamlike the work of the Organization and decision-making. These include the Technical Coordination Committee, Policy Advisory Committee (PAC), Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP), Joint WMO-IOC Collaborative Board and several panels.

Resolutions, decisions and recommendations adopted by the Constituent Bodies are recorded in the final reports of the sessions (Regulations 92-95). At each session, Constituent Bodies review the status of these instruments and confirm those that should be kept in force.

Resolutions, decisions and recommendations adopted by the Constituent Bodies and confirmed to be kept in force are maintained in an online database.

The current version of the database also contains resolutions and recommendations of the Technical Commissions active during the seventeenth financial period.

The database also contains the requests made by Congress from Cg-Ext (2021) and the Executive Council from EC-73.