Wilfred Enow Agbor
Yaounde, Cameroon
and
Ata Nchomba
Houston, TX
The Japanese government, through its “Cool Earth Partnership” has restituted 20 weather stations to the government of Cameroon during a signing ceremony of memorandum of understanding. The ceremony took place at the Yaoundé Conference Center, and the Minister Delegate from the Ministry of Transport, Mr. Mefiri Oumarou presided over the ceremony. Equally present at the ceremony was Mr. Akwa Patrick, Secretary General of the Ministry of Environment and Protection of Nature, a representative from the United Nations Development Program in Cameroon, Lisa Simrique Singh and the Japanese Ambassador to Cameroon, Tsutomu Arai.
Screen shot of Africa Adaptation Program website on Cameroon's climate vulnerability profile
The official hand over of the equipment was done by the Ambassador on behalf of the Japanese Government to the Minister Delegate at the Ministry of Transport as part of the Japanese’s “Cool Earth Partnership” through the African Adaptation Program (AAP).
AAP was established under the Japan-UNDP joint framework for building partnership to address climate change in Africa. It was established at the Tokyo International Conference for African Development that took place in Yokohama, Japan in May of 2008.
The objective of AAP is to reinforce the capacity of the meteorological station in Cameroon with the possibility to provide to the population and state institutions authentic information on climate change and how to adapt to it.
AAP’s long term plan are as follows:
- Permit countries manage both existing and future risks associated with climate change.
- Build effective leadership and institutional frameworks for enhanced coordination and cohesion of programs.
- Support the piloting of adaptation initiative in the field.
- Identify range of financing options for sustained adaptation.
- Finally, build knowledge management systems and promote information sharing.
During the signing event, the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Environment Protection and Sustainable Development, the National Meteorological Directorate known in French as la “Direction de la Meteorologie Nationale (DMN)”, were invited to take active part in a series of workshops organized by AAP. Part of the workshops included the sending of an expert from DMN to Italy to acquire the following expertise:
- Presenting good information whenever there is climate change and how to adapt to it.
- Provide timely information to the media, radio and television station so that the population is aware.
- Disseminate information to aviation and maritime authorities
- Help the government with information that will enable her fight climate change or better still reduce the effect.
The donation of the 20 meteorological stations to Cameroon falls in line with the initiative “Cool Earth Partnership” of the Japanese Government to assist 21 African countries on adaptation to climatic change at the cost of 92.1 million U S dollars. Cameroon, so far, has benefited the sum of 3 million U S dollars from the donations. Partners to this initiative have been the United Nations development program (UNDP) and United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF).
Other beneficiaries of the AAP are Congo, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Tanzania and Tunisia.
A methodological station is a collection of instruments like hydrometer, anemometer, wind-vane, a transmission and reception satellite design to record and store information with respect to changes noticed in the weather at different periods. The device has the capacity to measure temperature, pressure, speed and direction of wind, height and type of cloud and visibility.
Editor’s note:
Information on Japan’s “Cool Earth Partnership is available online at
http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/economy/wef/2008/mechanism.html
African Adaptation Program (AAP) website on Cameroon is located at
http://www.undp-aap.org/countries/cameroon
