Meteorological regional centre imminent

Specialists from the Economic Community of Central African States started laying the groundwork on April 20, 2015.

Experts say climate hazards have no boundary and countries of the Economic Community of Central African States, ECCAS and the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa, CEMAC, like those of other regions of the continent and world are being affected due to its growing risk.

Disaster risk management and climate change adaptation programmes are therefore indispensable. However, other regions of the continent seem to have taken the bull by the horn well ahead of time, by pushing for the implementation of the Regional Climate Centre project. The ECCAS/CEMAC region is lagging behind and has awaken from slumber, leaving nothing to chance to have its own climate centre.

Experts started meeting in Yaounde on April 20, 2015 to lay the groundwork for the putting in place of the centre. The document will be submitted for adoption by the Conference of Ministers in Charge of Meteorology in Central Africa when they meet on April 24, 2015. All speakers at the opening of the three-day confab agreed that climate is both a resource and a hazard, acknowledging that human kind does not control it, though it can observe, monitor and predict so as to avoid calamities.

From the representative of the World Meteorological Organisation, WMO, to that of the ECCAS and CEMAC, it was established that the sub-region needs a centre that will study climate and download it for use at national meteorological centres. Farmers as well as decision-makers, suffer unforeseen climate effects, and reducing poverty in the region can only be resolute once stakeholders are able to master climate changes.

The Secretary General in the Ministry of Transport, Jean Pierre Soh, sitting in for his boss, urged experts to be pragmatic in their proposals. He challenged them to draw a feasible work plan that will lead to the project implementation.

On behalf of Robert Nkili, Jean Pierre Soh reminded participants of the need to give focus to the centre’s status, its fact-sheet, organisational chart as well as its head office.

He said WMO Regional Climate Centres are institutions of excellence that create regional products, including long-range forecasts that support regional and national climate activities and thereby strengthen capacity so as to deliver better climate services to national users. The centre will generate and deliver more regionally-focused high-resolution data and products as well as training and capacity building of climate experts.

The socio-economic effects of adverse climate are challenging, and experts meeting in Yaounde say they will not wait to see that the catastrophes rocking their nations come to a halt. The Directors General of Meteorology of Chad and Gabon, Elie Mbaitoubam and Martin Ondo Ella, regret the draughts and floods currently rocking their countries, saying such occurrences would be averted once the Regional Climate Centre goes operational.