• Director Meteorology, Republic of Chad
• Representative of the ECCAS Commission
• Directors of Meteorology, ECCAS Member States
• Distinguished Delegates
• Ladies and Gentlemen

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Greetings from Mr. Harsen Nyambe, the African Union Commission Director of Sustainable Environment and Blue Economy

On his behalf, and my own behalf, I have the honour to address you during this 17^th Regional Climate Outlook Forum (RCOF) for the ECCAS Region which is holding under the theme “Climate Services for Early Warning and Early Action”

Early Warning and Early Action are critical for Africa’s efforts to save lives and property, secure livelihoods, build resilience to the effects of climate change, and eventually, achieve sustainable development.

In fact, one of the expected outcomes of the Meteorology Strategy is “Improved Early Warning Systems and Climate Risk Management for the Protection of Life, Property and the Environment”.

So, the theme fits with Africa’s current needs for attaining its pan-African Vision, enshrined in Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want.

Climate change is one of the key threats to Africa’s realisation of its development Vision. This is more so as most of our economies are natural-resource based, and hence prone to climate variability and change.

Thus, such core Africa’s socio-economic development sectors as agriculture, blue economy, disaster risk reduction, energy, biodiversity including forestry, health, infrastructure, water, land resources, transport (air, land, and sea) among others, are all threatened by extreme weather and climate change.

This signifies how important weather, water and climate services are to Africa’s realisation of its pan-African Vision by 2063.

This is a challenge for the meteorological sector to produce timely and reliable climate information producers in order for the sectors to make climate-informed decisions and design meaningful plans of action.

Our pollical leadership, decision-makers in government, communities and households require timely, reliable and adequate weather, water and climate service in order to make climate-informed decisions.

The RCOF is a very important platform as far as addressing climate information challenges in the ECCAS Region, and Africa, in general, is concerned.

We know that production of climate information alone is not enough. Rather, it is the combination of timely information production, dissemination, and usefulness of such information.

It is pleasing to note that from this Forum, has addressed all these issues. One of the clear and important outcomes of this forum is the establishment of UIPs (User Interface Platforms) – platforms allowing interactions between climate information producers and climate information users.

The establishment of the Climate-Agriculture, Climate-DRR, Climate Health, and Climate-Water UIPs is a significant foundation laid down today for the region’s effective address of the climate challenge.

The bringing together of producers and users of climate information from the ECCAS Region, is very commendable.

I would like to express the African Union Commission’s gratitude to the experts who have worked tirelessly for the past two to produce the products released here today.

My strongly-held view is that the Outlooks you generate are an important tool to help the continent make climate-informed policies and decision, craft adaptation planning options, and implement climate initiatives across sectors at all levels.

National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) have a primary responsibility to produce and disseminate such information for preparedness and early action.

However, the AU Commission is aware that most of our NMHSs have low capacity to produce and disseminate early warning services and operational weather prediction. Consequently, multi-hazard early warning system coverage is exceptionally low on the continent.

As enhancing the capacities of National Meteorological and Hydrological Services and National Disaster Management Agencies is a must, the AU Commission, with funding from the EU is procuring meteorological (PUMA) for all sub-Saharan African countries, including all ECCAS member states.

The AUC has also established the Africa Multi-Hazard Early Warning Situation Room to have a continental update on the hazard situation so that member states can take early action.

It is the Vision of the AUC to have all regions and countries equipped with operational Situation Rooms.

The Commission is also addressing the issues of climate change through other initiatives including nature-based souls, the Great Green Wall, domestication and operationalisation of the Africa Blue Economy Strategy, the Africa Climate Change and Resilient Development Strategy, among others.

It is therefore important to maintain effective collaboration among ourselves.

In conclusion, the African Union Commission is grateful to the Government and People of the Republic of Chad for the warn hospitality, support in the production of banners and other communication and visibility actions.

Funding for this forum has been provided by the European Union. The AUC is grateful for the support.

We thank the ECCAS Commission for the continued collaboration.

Last, but not least, we appreciate the work of interpreters, who have allowed us to understand each other.

I thank you all for your kind attention.