By Delia Gutiérrez. Posted july 28, 2016

A workshop has been held in Dakar from 19 to 21 July, co-organized by the National Agency of Civil Aviation and Meteorology (ANACIM) of Senegal and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the United States, with participation of meteorological and health services authorities coming from four countries in the region (Senegal, Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso), as well as national and international experts.

The objective of the workshop was to strengthen the relationship and cooperation between meteorological and health services of the participating countries, aiming to identify and develope weather and climate information products to assist decision-making by health authorities. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) are heavily involved through the Global Framework for Climate Services (MMSC) in the development and implementation of such Early Warning Systems (EWS).

The HEALTHMET project of Afrimet has been represented at the meeting by its coordinator, along with the regional expert and focal point of the project in Burkina Faso. Throughout its history, the project HEALTHMET has facilitated the training of technicians of meteorological services in the region on issues such as the detection of atmospheric dust and climate-health relationships, and has promoted the creation of working groups on national Climate-Health in Mauritania and Burkina Faso.

HEALHMET projet has been presented to the participants of this workshop and partnerships with NOAA and with meteorological and health services of the participating countries have been identified, with the common aim of promoting the creation of national SATs in the countries concerned, in line with the results of the Conference of Nouakchott.

  By Delia Gutiérrez. Posted june 27, 2016

“CLIMATE SERVICES FOR HEALTH. Improving public health decision-making in a new climate”. The publication showcases 40 examples of tailored climate services used to manage health risks.

Find more information here.
Access to the publication here.

  By Delia Gutiérrez. Posted April 10, 2016

Agenda
Participant list

 

  By Delia Gutiérrez. Posted April 10, 2016

The Department of Water Resources of Gambia has developed, based on a template provided by Afrimet, a simple dynamic website, whose content can be updated independently.

Site web

  By Delia Gutiérrez. Posted March 11, 2016

The first Conference was held in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Spain) in 2007. It has been followed by the conferences in Niamey (Niger) in 2008, Banjul (Gambia) in 2010, Sal (Cape Verde) in 2011 and Boadilla (Spain) in 2012.

The VI AFRIMET Conference will be held in Nouakchott, Mauritania, between 19 and 21 April.

The Conference’s main objective is the work of all of the countries together, therefore making it easier to detect problems and adopt decisions.

Provisional agenda
Useful information

 By Delia Gutiérrez. Posted January 20, 2016

The workshop was held in Abidjan ((Ivory Coast), from 23 to 27 November 2015, with participation of representatives of the meteorological services of the 17 participating countries (16 countries members of the Conference AFRIMET and Chad) together with WMO and AEMET.

The METAGRI pilot project was launched in 2008 in the context of the programme of cooperation AFRIMET of AEMET and WMO. Funded by AEMET, 160 educational roving seminars were held until 2011, and about 3500 raingauges were distributed among farmers from the 16 countries members of the Conference AFRIMET. The second phase, METAGRI OPS, has being mainly funded by the Government of Norway, through WMO, although the AFRIMET program was still linked to the project and offered some support. From 2012 to 2015, 260 new seminars have been held, and more than 4500 rain gauges have been provided to the farmers of the 17 participating countries. Technical training has also been provided to the meteorological services, and the encounter with the media for the dissemination of meteorological information has been fostered.

During the workshop the successes, difficulties and lessons learned have been examined, and the lines of work of the new METAGRI SERVICES project have been outlined. The new project will be submitted to the next Conference of Directors AFRIMET which will soon be convened.

More information can be found on the webpage of the workshop,

https://sites.google.com/a/wmo.int/metagri-2015/

By Delia Gutiérrez. Posted December 02, 2015

This meeting, organized by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Programme for the Environment (UNEP), the European Agency for the exploitation of meteorological satellites (EUMETSAT) and AEMET, was held in Amman (Jordan), from 2 to 5 November, with the participation of representatives from the fields of meteorology, the environment and the health of 16 countries, together with international experts.

AFRIMET’s HEALTHMET pilot project has joined the initiative with the participation of representatives of the meteorological services of the two countries that have already launched their national Climate and Health Working Groups (CHWG), Mauritania and Burkina Faso.

The meeting has focused on assessing the state of knowledge on the subject, and on promoting measures to tackle the problem of pollution by mineral dust from the sanitary point of view.

The Healthmet project has been presented at the meeting. This pilot project, which aims to strengthen links and cooperation between the meteorological and health services in the countries involved, launched in 2011 the national CHWGs in Mauritania and Burkina Faso. After a period of inactivity, in 2015 the project is has approached the ClimHealth Africa initiative and the joint office WHO/WMO of the MMSC. Participation in this workshop is intended to be the takeoff of the re-launch of the CHWGs and the implementation of activities aimed firstly to evaluate the data and available resources and needs, on the way to the establishment of early warning systems for health services.

Spain leads the world prediction of dust and sand storms through the first operating center in the world recognized by the WMO. The Barcelona Dust Forecast Center (BDFC), created in February of 2014, produces and distributes daily predictions of atmospheric mineral dust for North Africa, Middle East and Europe. The Center is managed by AEMET and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC). These predictions are essential to establishing national early warning systems allowing the mitigation of the adverse effects of mineral dust.

During the workshop, the city of Amman lived an exceptionally intense episode of airborne dust. Data and forecast were discussed at the meeting.  

You can find the presentations of Mauritania, Burkina Faso and HEALTHMET at AFRIMET documents’ archive.

.

  By Delia Gutiérrez. Posted Juny 24, 2015

Organized by World Meteorological Organization (WMO), World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) and State Meteorological Agency of Spain (AEMET). More information here

  By Delia Gutiérrez. Posted Juny 24, 2015

The Sahelian belt is known to be a region where atmospheric levels of suspended mineral dust are among the highest observed on Earth. In the framework of the African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analysis (AMMA) program, a transect of 3 ground based stations, the Sahelian Dust Transect (SDT), was deployed in order to obtain quantitative information on the mineral dust content and its variability over the Sahel. The three stations, namely Banizoumbou (Niger), Cinzana (Mali) and M’Bour (Senegal) are aligned around 14◦N along the east-westward main pathway of the Saharan and Sahelian dust towards the Atlantic Ocean (Marticorena et al., 2010).

Find more information here.

  By Delia Gutiérrez. Posted February, 2015

On February 4, framed in the sixteenth session of the Regional Association I WMO held in Praia, Cape Verde, a meeting of the members of the Conference of Directors AFRIMET was held. In it, an assessment of the status of this cooperation program AEMET -which was warmly acknowledged by all partners- was presented.

During the act, AEMET introduced the new program coordinator. Members of the conference were summoned to a new meeting on the occasion of the future VI Conference of Directors, to be convened for this year 2015

Find in our archives the synthesis document on the status of the AFRIMET program

The course is to be held in Casablanca, Morocco, 17-20 November 2014.

More information and application form here: http://sds-was.aemet.es/events/4th-training-course-on-wmo-sds-was-products. The deadline for submitting applications to participate in the course is September 14. There is not any registration fee. However, participants must take charge of their travel and accommodation expenses.
Meteorologists from African National Meteorological and Hydrological Services as well as from the African Center of Meteorological Application for Development (ACMAD) may apply for financial support. Applications, necessarily including a short CV of the applicant and a support letter from his/her country's Permanent Representative with WMO or the ACMAD Director, shall be sent to sdswas@aemet.es with subject: financial support. HEALTHMET project will support one participant among Afrimet’s members applications. Please copy dgutierrezr@aemet.es if you want to apply for this support.

The third edition of the course  was held in Ouagadougou ( Burkina Faso) from 5 to 9 May 2014, organized by WMO and EUMETSAT , under the METAGRI -OPS project. The two previous editions were held in Niamey (Niger) in 2012 and in Accra (Ghana) in 2013. This edition, in French, was attended by representatives of meteorological services in Benin , Burkina Faso , Cameroon , Ivory Coast , Chad , Guinea , Guinea Bissau , Mali , Mauritania , Niger , Senegal and Togo.

The course, aimed at the specific needs of the region, had teachers of institutions who are active in this field: WMO, EUMETSAT, Land SAF, TAMSAT, JRC, FAO, University of Lisbon. AEMET contributed with specific teachers to present the Barcelona Dust Forecast Centre and Nowcasting SAF products and some experiences in distance learning.

The course, that was very active , has allowed students to share their experiences and challenges in this field of satellite agro- meteorology.

Find here more photos of the event.

All the course’s presentations are available at AFRIMET ‘s files.

Training Courses on crop model SARRA-H, second edition in Banjul (Gambia) and third edition in Abidjan (Ivory Coast).

Find the report of these courses at AFRIMET’s files.
Learn more about SARRA-H at http://sarra-h.teledetection.fr/SARRAH_Home_En.html

Banjul, 02 - 2014

Abidjan, 03 - 2014

Article published in the journal revista Environmental Health  Perspectives, Soil Dust Aerosols and Wind as Predictors of Seasonal Meningitis Incidence in Niger

EO2Heaven book on mitigation of environmental health risks. More information at http://eo2heaven.org/

It’s available in Afrimet’ files the prediction of meningococcal meningitis incidence trend in Burkina Faso for year 2014 prepared by the Working Group on Climate and Health from Burkina. Find the English version and French version.

More information on the method of work here  

Training for the operational implementation of the SARRA-H crop model in the countries of the Sahel. METAGRI OPERATIONAL Project of the Conference of Directors of the West African Meteorological Services, AFRIMET.

Archive

It’s available in Afrimet’ files the prediction of meningococcal meningitis incidence trend in Burkina Faso and Niger for year 2013 prepared by the Working Group on Climate and Health from Burkina. Find the English version and French version.

More information on the method of work here.

On the past 13th and 14th December, they have been held in Dakar a workshop on improving relations between meteorological services and media, and an evaluation workshop of the METAGRI OPERATIONAL project which was attended by the focal points of the fifteen participating countries

Presentations and documents are available in the files archive Afrimet

Archive

The II Lectures on Atmospheric Mineral Dust were held in Barcelona, organized by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), EUMETSAT, the Spanish State Meteorological Agency (AEMET), the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS) and the Catalonia Technical University (UPC) and coordinated by the Regional Center for Northern Africa, Middle East and Europe of the WMO SDS-WAS programme.

The organization invited one participant from Gambia Department of Water Resources, choosen among the members of Afrimet Conference.

Presentations and documents are available at Regional Center for Northern Africa, Middle East and Europe of the WMO SDS-WAS programme

SDS-WAS

Archive
Photos

The fifth meeting of the AFRIMET Directors Conference will take place in Boadilla del Monte, some 17 Km to the city of Madrid, among 22th and 24th October 2012.

Useful information
Timetable
Agenda
Practical Information

The combined Tide Gauges and Automatic Weather Stations, and the independent Automatic Weather Stations (AWSs) planned in the last phase of the MARINEMET Pilot Project (http://www.afrimet.org/marinemet/index.php/en/documents/doc_download/27-tor-pilot-project) have been acquired and installed (SUTRON corporation) in the beneficiary countries:

In the near future, the data of these equipments will be available at www.afrimet.org/marinemet/

The following presentations by Dr. Pascal YAKA Burkina Faso, regional expert of  Healthmet project, are available from our archive:

"Climate, Environment and Health: What are the Relationships Between Climate and meningitis? How Could We use climate data to predict meningitis Epidemics? ", public lecture at the University of Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa

"Opportunities and Constraints Seasonal Rainfall Forecast for application to agricultural decisions in Burkina Faso", presentation at the international workshop on seasonal forecasts and their application to rural world, University of Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa, May 2012.

read it

Find here the document, and also in Afrimet's archives.

On the 15 and 16 of Decembre 2011 the workshop for the launch of the Burkina Faso National Climate-Health Work Group (NCHWG) was held in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), being Burkina the second of the countries participating in the project HEALTHMET that sets up the NCHWG.

Project HEALTHMET encourages the establishment of links between health and meteorological authorities in five pilot countries, by means of the creation of national Work Groups whose mission is to promote the use of meteorological and climatological information to improve the prevention and the fight against epidemiological diseases sensitive to climatic variations, with particular attention to meningitis and malaria.

The Director of the National Civil Aviation Agency of Burkina Faso, on behalf of the Minister of Transport, Posts and Numeric Economics, presided over the opening ceremony along with the Director General of Meteorology, and representatives of the Ministry of Health, the WMO and AEMET (Spanish Meteorological Agency).

Around 35 people attended the workshop, representative of various authorities and organisations related to health services, meteorologists, environment and university.

As a result, the composition of the NCHWG, including goals, tasks and expected outcomes have been defined and a work plan has been produced that will be developed over year 2012.

The presentations and final report produced from the workshop are available in the Afrimet program’s website files.    

Photos of the workshop

• http://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/pr_929_en.html
• http://www.aemet.es/es/noticias/2011/10/seminarios_africa
• http://www.lavozdeasturias.es/opinion/Meteorologia-desarrollo_0_573542715.html
• http://www.unmultimedia.org/radio/french/2011/10/omm-mettre-la-meteo-au-service-des-paysans-africains/
• http://reliefweb.int/node/452793
• http://climate-l.iisd.org/news/wmo-trains-west-african-farmers-on-use-of-weatherclimate-information/
• http://allafrica.com/stories/201110270557.html
• http://www.africainfomarket.org/noticia/espana/la-agencia-estatal-de-meteorologia-de-espana-financia-un-exitoso-programa-en-africa-occidental/340469

On the 28 and 29 of June 2011, the workshop for the launch of the Mauritanian national Climate-Health Work Group (CHWG) was held in Nouakchott (Mauritania), being Mauritania the first of the countries participating in the project HEALTHMET that sets up the CHWG.

Project HEALTHMET encourages the establishment of links between health and meteorological authorities in five pilot countries, by means of the creation of national Work Groups whose mission is to promote the use of meteorological and climatological information to improve the prevention and the fight against epidemiological diseases sensitive to climatic variations. Diseases such as meningitis, malaria and Rift Valley fever have a great human and economic cost in these countries and it is known that they are related to environmental and climatic factors.

The General Secretaries for the Ministries for Equipment and Transport and the Ministry of Health presided over the opening ceremony along with the Director General of the National Meteorological Office, the Mauritanian representative of the WHO and representatives of the WMO and AEMET (Spanish Meteorological Agency).

Around 40 people attended the workshop, representative of various authorities and organisations related to health services, meteorologists, universities and NGOs. Also present was a representative of the Spanish Oficina Técnica de Cooperación (Technical Cooperation Office) in Mauritania.

A work plan has been produced that will be developed over the coming 12 months.

The presentations and documents produced from the workshop are available in the website program file.

• Information
• Photos of the workshop

Participants - Creation of the Mauritanian national Climate-Health Work Group

Taking into account the suggestions received, the following changes have been introduced in the MARINEMET website (http://www.afrimet.org/marinemet/):

• Loop of images (animation) for the deep sea water modelling products
• Improvement of the availability of the real time remote sensing products (6-7 hours earlier than before)
• Improvement of the availability of the deep sea water modelling products (1 hour earlier than before)
• Correction of errors in the display of the columns in the deep sea water modelling products (the last column on the right didn't appear)

We hope these improvements are useful for you.

In the context of the Project METAGRI, the agricultural meteorology project of AFRIMET (Conference of Directors of the West African National Meteorological and Hydrological Services), a training event for the National Focal Points of the NMHSs from Côte d' Ivoire, Ghana, Liberia and Nigeria was held between 29 to 30 March 2011 at the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET) Regional Training Centre in Lagos (Nigeria).

The event was opened by the Permanent Representative of Nigeria, Dr. A.C. Anuforom welcoming the participants. He gave support words from the Minister of Aviation for the successful development of the activity.

The event was conducted by Mr. Daouda Z. Diarra, expert from the DMN Mali who brought to the participants his wide experience into agrometeorological projects with special emphasis in the mechanism and the organisation of the Roving Seminars in the sahelian countries.

It was also relevant the presence of the experts in agrometeorology from the Nigerian Meteorological Agency who brought their experience in a country that has a wide variety of climatic and agricultural regions.

Exchange of points of view was very successful and the trained Focal Points were ready to perform up to 10 Roving Seminars into their countries to accomplish the Phase III of the Project METAGRI. This project is technically managed by WMO and the NMS of 16 Western African Countries and it is funded by the Spanish State Agency of Meteorology (AEMET)

Participants - METAGRI Training Seminar for countries Phase III

Opening in Guinea on the occasion of the World Meteorological Day of the radio-sounding equipment funded with AFRIMET assistance

• Información

See below for useful information for attendees, and the draft agenda:

• Useful information
• Draft agenda

Courses on Satellite Meteorology and SDS-WAS Products were held in Barcelona from the 8th to the 12th and from the 15th to the 19th of November 2010, respectively. They were jointly organised and financed by the WMO, EUMETSAT, AEMET and BSC (Barcelona Supercomputing Center).
The first was attended by one representative from each of the NMHSs in West Africa, and the second by the local points of contact in the member countries of the HEALTHMET project, among others .

• Report on the Satellite Meteorology course
• Report on the SDS-WAS Products course

Participants in the Satellite Meteorology course

February 1st and 2nd : Workshop on Resource Mobilization and Strategic Advocacy
February 3rd to 5th : Meeting of Director of the West African NMHSs

Venue:

THE KAIRABA BEACH HOTEL
Badala Park Highway
The Gambia
Telephone: (+220) 446 2940/1/2/3 
Facsimile: (+220) 446 2947
E-mail: info@kairabahotel.com

• MEETING OF DIRECTORS OF THE WEST AFRICAN NMHSs(Banjul, Gambia) - DRAFT PROGRAMME
• Pre-Meeting Workshop Resource Mobilization and Strategic Advocacy 01 - 02 February 2010

The Marine Meteorology Project launching and the First Technical meeting:

The Directors Conference of Niamey dated November 2008, approved The Niamey Plan, which includes in Action Plan I, a pilot project in Marine Meteorology, consisting mainly of the transfer of knowledge and infrastructure, and the willingness of aech participating country to facilitate the facilities as well as the will to learn, until we could achieve its own autonomy at the end of the projects´s 4 year term. During the first stage, the following countries will be involved: Senegal, Mauritania, Cabo Verde, and Gambia. Guinea and Guinea Bissau will be added later. The expansion of other countries belonging to the Guinean Gulf will be considered.

The launching meeting to sign the Terms of Reference of the Project, will take place on the 14th of June in Dakar, with the presence of the OMM and AEMET, the Directors from the Meteorology Service participants, as well as the Spanish Meteorology State Agency President.

The first Technical Meeting on the focal points of each country, OMM and AEMET, will take place on the following dates, July 15 and 16.

• Program Meeting on Marine Meteorology Dakar 14-16 Jul  

• LIST PARTIC Meeting on Marine Meteorology and Workshop in Management for the Directors of NMHSs

Management Workshop for the Meteorologic and Hidrologic Directors of West Africa:

During the Directors Conference of Niamey, dated November 2008, the Niamey Plan was approved. Which includes in its Action 4.2 the holding of a Management Workshop, Communication, Project Management, and the development of an e-learning platform geared toward Management.

The workshop will take place in Dakar on July 15 and 17. During this occasion, a launching of a moodle platform will take place, “Western Africa Modern SMHN Management”.

• Programme Workshop in Management for the Directors of NMHSs Dakar 15-17 July 2009    |    download

• LIST PARTIC Meeting on Marine Meteorology and Workshop in Management for the Directors of NMHSs  |  download