From June 19 to 23, 2024, stakeholders and partners from across the Volta Basin gathered in Accra, Ghana, for the closing workshop of the project titled “Integrating Flood and Drought Management and Early Warning for Climate Change Adaptation in the Volta Basin (VFDM)”.
The VFDM project, financed by the Adaptation Fund, was launched in June 2019 for an implementation period of five years. It brought together the WMO, the Volta Basin Authority (VBA), the Global Water Partnership West Africa (GWP-WA), and six Volta Basin countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Mali, and Togo) in a collaborative effort to strengthen impact-based early warning systems for floods and drought events.
A survey conducted by WMO among its 193 Member countries revealed that globally, only 50% have operational Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems (MHEWS), and this gap is notably significant in Africa. In the framework of WMO Congress and other constituent bodies meetings, National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) have requested support and committed to strengthening their EWS to save lives and reduce damage to property and the environment.
The project aimed at empowering the NMHSs…
