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A new partnership seeks to improve climate services and protect agriculture in Mozambique

28 March 2018
A new partnership seeks to improve climate services and protect agriculture in Mozambique

The Mozambique National Institute of Meteorology (INAM) is launching a new project in partnership with the Nordic Development Fund (NDF) and aligned to the Transforming Hydro-Meteorological Services Project, which is financed by the World Bank Pilot Program for Climate Resilience (PPCR).

The project will focus on improving weather and climate services in Mozambique allowing INAM to develop a national weather forecasting service and pilot an early-warning weather scheme.

Mozambique is extremely vulnerable to the effects of climate change and weather events such as floods, droughts and cyclones. Accurate weather forecasts and warnings are critical for Mozambique as the country is largely dependent on agriculture.

According to USAID agriculture contributes over a quarter to Mozambique’s GDP and employs 80% of its labour force.

The project will support INAM in reviewing and developing its long term strategic plan, such as implementing warning systems, assessing the capacity of its weather observation networks and evaluating impact-based forecasts.

Aage Jorgensen, Program Manager at NDF, commented:

“The Nordic Development Fund is happy to see a world-class technical assistance team in place to work long-term with INAM. This will strengthen its institution and organization to become more efficient and effective in providing reliable meteorological data and cooperating with other institutions in Mozambique to produce early warning and climate data collection. This is well in line with other NDF support to initiatives across Africa to help the generation and use of climate information for climate-resilient development.”

The collaboration between the Nordic Development Fund (NDF), the Transforming Hydro-Meteorological Services Project and INAM will bring together expertise, methods and tools to support the creation of an adaptive plan.

The project is also partnered by the Met Office, the UK’s national weather service; MET Norway, the Norwegian Meteorological Institute; Deltares (Netherlands); and CONSULTEC (Mozambique independent agency).

Dave Britton, Met Office Head of International Development, said:

“For nations like Mozambique, which are heavily reliant on agriculture, improving weather forecasting and increasing the understanding of climate change impacts are vital. We will draw on our collective global experience in partnering with National Meteorological & Hydrological Services (NMHSs), government institutions and development agencies, and look forward to working closely with INAM.”

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Image credit: Technoserve.org