There is a special focus on early warnings for agriculture, food security and civil protection, and a specific alignment with investments by the World Bank and the Africa Development Bank and other partners in line with respective national frameworks for climate services.

In the Pacific, CREWS is strengthening hydro-meteorological and early warning services for islands including Fiji, Cook Islands, Kiribati, Niue and Tuvalu, Samoa, Tonga, Palau, Nauru, Marshall Islands and Tokelau. In Papua New Guinea, it is improving control and maintenance of the existing drought and flood monitoring network, as well as early warnings for the agriculture sector and disaster managers.

The Steering Committee meeting identified new countries in Africa and Asia where projects could be financed in the coming two years. CREWS projects let countries and expert partners lead. This ensures that the most pressing needs are given priority. They build on existing activities and enable countries to leverage additional resources from the Green Climate Fund and other sources. There is a special focus on women, who play an important role in responding to early warnings, and are very effective ambassadors to build resilience.

For example, agro-meteorological trainings called “roving seminars” were held in 3 pilot municipalities of Burkina Faso, providing specific advice to 807 women an 1,040 men on the choice of crops, on the optimal timing for planting, on how to optimize the use of agricultural inputs in relation with climate observations and forecasts, and on how to best manage the harvest and post-harvest.

The CREWS initiative was launched at the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris in 2015 and is spearheaded by France. Other coalition partners are Australia, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, with support from Canada. In a sign of the growing momentum, the steering committee welcomed the participation of Switzerland and Mexico in the Steering Committee. CREWS is being implemented by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the World Bank, and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) with support of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR).

Date:

18 Jun 2018

Sources:

United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR)

Themes:

Early Warning, Disaster Risk Management

Regions:

Africa, Americas