The Federal Government has announced plans to collaborate with the Niger Republic and the Gambia on climate change issues.
Prof. Mansur Matazu, Managing Director of the Nigerian Meteorological Service, disclosed this on Monday during a courtesy visit to Abuja by officials from the National Meteorological Services of Niger Republic.
Matazu stated that the agency would also share with both countries its experience with Seasonal Planet Prediction, which Nigeria has been implementing for the past 15 years, adding that they would be exploring various areas of interest, noting that the Seasonal Planet Prediction was a critical area for the Niger Republic.
“So, we are going to exchange and share experiences on Seasonal Planet Prediction as well as med-service prediction. We have a robust med-service prediction that is responsible for providing these exchanges of ideas and the issue of climate change, both impact on liability, adaptation and litigation,” he said.
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He said that NiMET commissioned research from across all the zones of the country, noting that the Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, would unveil in addition to research a project published by NiMET on impacts, vulnerability, adaptation and litigation in Nigeria.
“It is one area on its own and to share experiences with the Niger Republic team and of course, infrastructure and database management, Nigeria is a wide country and we have more than 100 offices so managing such facilities is always critical but with the support of the government, we have been able to upgrade our infrastructure, both forecasting infrastructure and physical facilities”.
Matazu further stated that just two years ago, Niger Republic graduated from providing just forecast to impact base forecast, which is telling the public what the forecast would be and the impact of the forecast. He added that technology transfers are one area that the Gambian team would also want to study in Nigeria and learn from them.
The DG said that the agency had been assisting Liberia and Sierra Leone with their daily forecasts, adding that the agency has played significant roles in the metamorphosing of the department of med-service into an agency.
“We provided them with the Impact-based forecast and increased their visibility and relevance during the debate at the National Assembly,”. “For Gambia as we have seen, we have been collaborating with them, remember we have a regional training centre that was established in 1964, the main goal is to train English-speaking African countries personnel and also we have assisted Malawi and Mozambique on PMS and ISO certification and early warning. We have also assisted med Liberia in CSG,”.
Story was adapted from Punch.
