Project Overview

The Government of Malawi, with the support of UNDP, recently secured funding from the Green Climate Fund to scale up the use of modernized early warning systems and climate information in the country.

 The project is working with communities in 14 food-insecure districts to co-develop tailored weather- and climate-based agricultural advisories to be disseminated through ICT/mobile, print and radio channels.

The project will also scale up the best practices in community readiness to respond to disasters and mitigate key risks. Community-based EWS will be scaled up in flood-prone areas and capacities to use and respond to warnings will be strengthened at the national, district and community levels.

Project Objective

To reduce vulnerability to climate change impacts on the lives and livelihoods of women and men, boys and girls, from extreme weather events and climate change.

Main Project Activities

• Expanding coverage of meteorological and hydrological infrastructure through installation of AWS, hydrological monitoring stations, lightning detection systems and lake buoys.
• Capacity building to hydromet staff on operations and maintenance, data analysis, modelling and forecasting.
• Develop tailored weather/climate based agriculture advisories for 14 food insecure districts and disseminate through ICT/mobile, print, and radio channels.
• Develop and disseminate tailored warning and advisories for fishing communities of Mangochi, Salima, Nkhata Bay and Nkhotakota around Lake Malawi.
• Develop and deploy the flood and water resource modelling and decision support system to enhance coverage for disaster risk and water resource management.
• Enable a demand – based model for climate information and services stimulating private sector engagement.
• Knowledge sharing and management for development, dissemination and use of EW and CI to enhance resilience.
• Scale – up community – based EWS in flood – disaster prone areas of Karonga, Salima, Dedza, Nkhotakota, Nkhata Bay, Rumphi, Phalombe and Zomba.
• Capacity development of national, district and community level actors on disaster and climate risk management