UNDP Hand’s over Key to New Forecasting Office
The Solomon Islands Meteorological Service (SIMS) received the key to their new Forecasting office from the visiting United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative, Ms.Tuya Altangerel who is based in Fiji on 7th September 2023.
The building is part of the UNDP’s Integrated Disaster Risk Management (IDRM) project and funded by the Government of Australia.
UNDP and MECDM staff at the new office
The objective of the project is to integrate the roles of the four technical divisions within the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change, Disaster Management and Meteorology (MECDM) in risk reduction of environmental, climate change, and natural hazards risks to enable authorities provide early warnings.
The new Forecasting office therefore, is an important milestone for SIMS as it will support its mandate of providing 24-hour weather and climate observation and dissemination of early warnings for meteorological hazards, earthquakes and tsunamis.
It will also provide a comfortable working environment for staff which is very important as they deal will providing life-saving weather related information to the people at both national and international levels.
Speaking at a brief ceremony onsite Deputy Secretary Technical for MECDM Mr Chanel Iroi told the UNDP delegates that the new Forecasting office will provide a better working environment for staff to perform their duties as expected of them and helps in the Ministry’s effort to enhance its early warning capabilities.
He thanked UNDP for this and past collaborations in different areas of work with the MECDM.
Responding to remarks by Mr Iroi, the UNDP RR said they are also appreciative of MECDM’s dedication to strengthen the country’s Meteorological services.
She said another area that both parties can also look into is to integrate the vulnerability and climate data and discuss with other ministerial partners using meteorological and forecasting data with climate vulnerability data to really understand where the highest risk are for households and communities.
She said these are issues that we can look into and discuss with partners like Australia in the future going forward.
Formal hand over of the building to the Solomon Islands Government will take place in November 2023.
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-MECDM Communication