Meteorological authority wraps up early warning training |16 August 2019

Delegates in a souvenir photograph with guests after they had received their certificate

Over 20 participants have successfully completed a two-week meteorological early warning system training organised by the Seychelles Meteorological Authority (SMA) with the support of European Union funded Seychelles Global Climate Change Alliance (GCAA+).

The training officially came to a close on Wednesday with a certificate ceremony held at the SMA headquarters.

It saw the participation from meteorologists and other stakeholders directly involved with the monitoring and management of disasters such as the department for disaster and risk management (DRDM), Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change and representatives from the agricultural sector as well as from coastal management.

In attendance were the principal secretary for climate change Wills Agricole, principal secretary for disaster and risk management Paul Labaleine and chief executive of SMA Vincent Amelie.

Facilitated by consultant Juan Fernandez, the training programme has been developed to build capacity for SMA and other relevant partners.

Objectives of the training included systematic collection of data, undertaking of risk assessments, communication of early warning and appropriate responses, monitoring and evaluation.

“During the training we have undertaken these past eight days, we have been analysing the early warning system in Seychelles with the idea to improve some of these early warning systems for flooding, landslides and so on,” Mr Fernandez explained.

“At this stage, the early warning system for flooding in Seychelles is for the whole island and is not localised. The idea behind the training was to find different thresholds in order to make it better and more localised for people to benefit more from the information,” he said.

Mr Amelie explained that it had reached a point for Seychelles to start discussing the efficiency of its early warning system particularly given that disasters are more prone to happen due to climate change.

“It is very important for all stakeholders in the country to join together and find ways to strengthen our cooperation and to better coordinate during a disaster. Before this could happen however, we needed to go back to some basics. Right now, we do not really have a clear definition of what a disaster is. Is it 10mm of rain in half an hour where a place has experienced floods but another region has not? Is it 30mm?

“It was also crucial for us to define what inundation means in local context,” Mr Amelie added.