Regional cooperation and development activities

News

WMO and partners pilot "Mobile Weather Alert" for fishermen on Lake Victoria

The Uganda Department of Meteorology, Ericsson, MTN, National Lake Rescue Institute and the World Meteorological Organization are piloting an SMS service called “Mobile Weather Alert” which uses mobile technology to provide forecasts of severe weatherand improve safety for fishermen on Lake Victoria.

A two-day training workshop in Kampala from 4th to 5th May will train community leaders so they understand what the weather alerts mean.These community leaders will in turn will each recruit and train other fishermen on Ssese Island, Lake Victoria to use the service for a 3 month trial period.

More than 5000 people lose their lives on Lake Victoria each year. Most of them drown as a result of high winds and waves associated with convective storms on the lake.The aim of the Mobile Weather Alert project is to reduce the casualty toll. The Lake supports nearly 200,000 fishermen, with a fishing fleet of more than 70,000 boats and so is vital to the local economy.

To find out more on the project, please click here.

New projects

The Resource Mobilization Office is working closely with the regional offices to initiate new projects and insure adequate funding. Several new projects have been initiated in the past months and have been added to the project database. Please keep checking back, as the database is constantly being updated with new projects, documents, links and other interesting information.

Support for Lake Victoria region

WMO and the World Bank have recently signed a grant agreement for the implementation of a project to support Weather and Climate Services in the Lake Victoria region. This three year project is focused on helping countries to improve forecasting capabilities to produce accurate and timely information; and improving systems for the dissemination of tailored information to end users. The overall objective of the grant is to build capacity for the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) in the countries in the Lake Victoria region; develop and enhance applications to improve delivery of products and services with a focus on: agricultural food security including food aid, and safety of fishing and transport in the Lake Victoria region.

For more information on the project, please click here.