Climate Exchange

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apacity

evelopment

Ministry of Agriculture Development (MoAD), focusing on the

development of an Agricultural Management Information System

(AMIS), which will use both historical and current weather and

climate data from the DHM. Each modernization effort has three

critical components:

• Institutional strengthening

• Updating the observing networks and forecast production

infrastructure

• Developing effective service delivery that meets users’ expectations.

Experience has shown that all three must be tackled if a moderniza-

tion programme is to succeed.

Depending on the capacity of the NMS, expert assistance may be

needed for the entire five years of project implementation. In Nepal,

training and other capacity improvement efforts will increase the

abilities of DHM staff, and implementation support will be provided

by contracting a ‘systems integrator’ (an expert consortium familiar

with NMSs, observing networks, forecasting and service delivery), to

help define the overall requirements for the procurement of equip-

ment and the design of the overall system.

While the systems integrator can provide the internal support

needed to build the system, it is essential that the NMS is

connected to the global meteorological community through

the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and, in partic-

ular, can take advantage of opportunities to pair with more

advanced NMSs, such as the neighbouring Indian Meteorological

Department and China Meteorological Administration in the case

of Nepal. Such twinning or pairing arrangements should include

forecasting and warning support and weather, climate and water

services delivery. Twinning would provide operational support

so that the NMS could rely on its partners to help it interpret

hazardous situations. It would also provide donors

and investors with a viable risk reduction strategy.

Government investment would show an immediate

return while national expertise is built, by lever-

aging the expertise of partners. Since expertise is

likely to be needed from several different NMSs,

the favoured approach is to use WMO Regional

Specialized Meteorological Centres and Regional

Climate Centres.

The agricultural component of the programme

will build an AMIS to provide weather and climate

information for agriculture. This kind of dedicated

user-oriented service, built with the ministry respon-

sible for agriculture, demonstrates how services in

general could be developed. Lessons learned from this

effort will be generally applicable to other weather- and

climate-sensitive sectors, enabling comparable sector-

specific services to be developed.

Ensuring positive results

The World Bank requires a strong results framework

for all its projects. The PPCR will be evaluated through

several factors including the measurement of weather and

climate product improvements. Continuous assessment

of the delivery of services to the public will consider the

programme’s impact on various groups of stakeholders,

including gender and minority groups. Targeted sector-

specific weather- and climate-sensitive groups will be

solicited through an independent evaluation process.

In both Nepal and Yemen, there is extensive need for

skills building and for climate and warning informa-

Left: typical image of Nepal, showing a river, terraces and erosion. In heavy rains landslides are common, in addition to river flooding. Right: shows flood levels on the

side of a hydrological gauging station. These stations are permanently manned by an observer who takes care of the measurements and issues local alerts based on

the river level and the instructions on the side of the building

Images: David Rogers