JUBA, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- South Sudan's environment ministry, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and the regional bloc IGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Center (ICPAC) on Monday launched a 10-million-U.S.- dollar project to establish the national climate early warning system.
The climate early warning system is a predictive modeling system using geospatial applications to provide climate information services and risk communication for South Sudan.
Joseph Africano Bartel, the undersecretary for Environment in the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, said the two-year project aims at strengthening the capacity of the government and communities in South Sudan to adapt to the impacts of climate change.
"As a country, we didn't have a system to alert our people about these calamities, with this project now we are very happy that ICPAC will be building the capacity of the metrological department and also providing equipment and training the staff such that we will be able to give to our people, send them alerts, predict the weather pattern and inform them about any hazards that will be happening," Africano told journalists in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, during the launch of the project.
He said the project will provide for capacity building, construction of meteorological stations in strategic locations, and resilience project in drought-prone areas like Terekeka in Central Equatoria and Kapoeta in Eastern Equatoria State which will include the construction of a field for water harvesting, the introduction of short rotational seedlings.
Josephine Napwon Cosmos, minister of Environment and Forestry, said more than 2 million people have been affected in South Sudan due to the impact of climate change that has left the people food insecure.
"The climate crisis is worsening in South Sudan and over 2 million people are internally displaced due to flooding, droughts, excessive heat, heatwaves, hazardous rain patterns resulting in crop failures and currently over 60 percent of our people are categorized as food insecure," Napwon said.
She said South Sudan through the climate early warning system will establish a state-of-art early warning system to provide timely weather information to alert citizens on climate hazards such as floods, droughts, heatwaves, and storms to enhance the country's disaster preparedness.
Jully Ouma, the hydromet expert at ICPAC, said the early warning system will try to let the country have a number of systems that can be used to monitor hazard issues and will link South Sudan to the region. "This can also be linked to what is at the regional level having a customized section just for South Sudan with permission where they can upload their data, and share their information freely to reach the wide possible audience and also there will be a capacity building on how to use this system," Ouma said. ■