By Asmau Ahmad
African countries have resolved to bridge the gap on early warning and early action regarding extreme weather conditions on the continent.
The Director-General of the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet), Prof. Mansur Matazu made this known at the closing of a two-day regional forum hosted by Nigeria.
The bodies involved in the forum are Intra-ACP Climate Services and Related Application Programmes (CLIMSA) Committee, and the Governing Board of African Centre of the Meteorological Application for Development (ACMAD).
Such efforts, Prof. Matazu said, would curtail damages in all 54 African countries coming together under ACMAD as a result of extreme weather conditions.
“Our resolution is that all Africa countries should try to bridge the gap between early warning and early action. Early warning begins with collections of data from meteorological parameters,” he said.
He added that the resolutions reached included developing early warning products and services, and relaying such products to users, and for such users to utilise them for livelihood improvement.
Matazu said another resolution was reduction on the effects of extreme weather events as had been recently witnessed in Nigeria.
The NiMet boss said his agency in particular, was taking the lead in the area of assisting many African countries in the spirit of brotherhood, access NiMet services.
He said the support that NiMet had received from the Federal Government under the supervision of the Ministry of Aviation had elevated its (NiMet) services as the best in Africa, making many countries come to understudy it.
“For us in NiMet, we provide products and service that are critical to sustainable development to the country. We recently released our Seasonal Rainfall Prediction (SRP) which was unveiled by the Minister of Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika.
“We are beginning to see the realisation of the forecast. We urge all the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of the government to relay the information to users,” he said.
The goal of ACMAD is to strengthen climate services value chain at continental levels, utilising the World Meteorological Organisatin (WMO)-designated Climate Centre (RCC) at ACMAD.
ACMAD also provides technical assistance to other RCCs in Africa, supporting the Africa Union with climate services for policy, decision and practices for climate resilience and adaptation to climate change.
