Weather disasters: Experts advocate early warning, early response

Weather forecast experts have advocated early warning and early response mechanisms in Africa to mitigate impacts of weather-related disasters due to climate change vulnerabilities.

Thy spoke in Abuja yesterday during the opening session of the ongoing 22nd Ordinary Session of the Governing Board of the African Centre of Meteorological Applications for Development (ACMAD).

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Director, World Meteorological Organization Regional Office for Africa, Amos Makarau, said:  “Sometimes, we have governments taking a long time to declare a state of emergency, but we need to bridge that gap. Once an early warning advisory has been issued, we actually expect the other agencies responsible for alerting the Head of States to announce to them that we have a disaster and to declare a state of emergency to allow humanitarian agencies to come.”

Director-General, ACMAD, André Kamga Foamouhoue, stressed the need to operationalize the relationship between national meteorological services and the disaster management agencies in order to move from warning to action.