NiMet: Stakeholders advocate impact-based climate change information

NiMet officials Mr. James Adamu Ijampy, Dr. Mansur Matazu & Mr. Chris Togonus Daudu of (NCRI) at the two day workshop organised by NiMet & SWIFT

Stakeholders across the economy of Nigeria have called on the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) to upscale its weather and climate related information to the benefits of rural communities so as to reduce losses through well-informed impact-based forecast rather than the raw data without explanation of negative impact prediction on economic productivity. This was one of the stands taken at two-day Stakeholders’ Workshop held in Abuja, recently.

The stakeholders in their reaction to the presentation titled Communicating and supporting impact- based forecasting: An Overview delivered by Prof. S.M Hassan where he postulated that to reduce climate change effects on rural communities, there was need for effective information to appropriate end users with state of the art equipment for reliable forecasting and impact if precaution was not adhered or taken to.

Although, the stakeholders applauded the effort of NiMet in the recent time, they pointed out that more integrated weather and climate change information in simple and everyday language that emphasised on impacts on people and environment be made available to every community adding that end users should be more engaged with more market products.

While speaking on Identification of recipients of forecast information who have the ability to react to early warning systems provided Prof. Ahmed Balogun said there was no economic intelligence to identify real users of products and then advised that NiMet be positioned to packaging weather and climate change related services as products to be paid for by end users saying that there is money in value-addition, but not in the raw data.

In his speech delivered on the occasion  NiMet and Science for Weather Information and Forecasting Technologies’ (SWIFT), workshop, the Director General of NiMet, Prof. Sani Abubakar Mashi said his agency ‘’is committed to providing timely, accurate and reliable weather and climate information in order to guide policy and decision making as well provide weather and climate advisories to our stakeholders across all sectors of national endeavours that contributes to the development of our dear nation’’, adding ‘’ NiMet’s weather and climate predictions provide useful information for reducing losses, and taking advantage of favourable weather conditions to achieve more efficient and effective implementation of programmes and projects in the country, in the agriculture for instance.”

He noted that empirical evidence has shown that the proper application of agro-meteorological information to farming was capable of increasing crops yield by up to 35 percent.

He promised that NiMet would not relent in ensuring the provision of necessary information and services towards mitigating climate change challenges in policy planning for agriculture, water management, power generation, transportation (land, rail, sea and air), health, disaster management and telecommunication.