The Ghana Meteorological Agency (GMet) has indicated its readiness to ensure that accurate climate data is provided to stakeholders as well as end-users.
According to its acting Director-General, Eric Asuman, a lot of measures have been put in place to ensure improvement in service delivery, key among which is recruitment of qualified staff and procurement of key logistics, etc.
“We believe it is a good start to get this staff capacity of meteorologists in order to improve our service delivery. We have also been given a number of automatic stations with our 25 stations. We have got calibration equipment to calibrate our manual stations. We also bought a switching system that actually synchronises all data from across the country and then relays this data to the global telecommunications system. In 2018, we were also given the funds to procure about 50 vehicles. So, despite the difficulties, we are trying to get over the challenges and then be able to deliver our mandate,” he said.
Mr. Asuman mentioned that there has been much improvement in terms of accuracy in the agency’s daily and seasonal forecasts during recent times. He added that while plans are underway to add more equipment to increase the quality of service, his outfit will continue to work with what is available to ensure the free flow of climate information.
“There is one particular piece of equipment that is very critical when it comes to giving early warning and being able to predict accurately, which is called the radar. The radar gives you an overview of the atmosphere with the click of a button. We need about four to cover the entire nation, but we only have one…which is even underperforming. There are plans in place to get them, but as it stands we are working hard by using technology to improve our service delivery,” he noted.
He made this comment during the World Meteorological Day celebration and launch of both the National Framework for Climate Services (NFCS) and Ghana Meteorological Society (GhMS) by GMet, in partnership with Feed the Future (FTF) and Ghana Policy LINK Activity, supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
The NFCS is an institutional mechanism to coordinate, facilitate and strengthen collaboration among national institutions, so as to improve the co-production, tailoring, delivery and use of science-based climate predictions and services by focusing on the five Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS).
Likewise, the Ghana Meteorological Society (GhMS) will help build infrastructure as well as a knowledge-base on global warming and climate change, and their disastrous weather-related effects. It is believed that tackling these issues will require collaborative efforts from National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHS), and all related institutions in the field of weather, water and climate.
An interim board was inaugurated to ensure the National Framework for Climate Services achieves its goals.
