International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is the implementing agency for the National Adaptation programme of Action (NAPA) that was developed as our country follow up actions after our First National Communication (FNC) and highlighted some of the key adaptation issues of the country to Climate Change.
This project has as key component the Meteorological Department’s capacity building in terms of logistics and training. We are to get six (6) more automatic stations, training of two (2) Meteorologists, three (3) Forecasters and general refresher training for the observers and massive public sensitization on weather and climate issues. The project started in October, 2012 after the recruitment of a “Climate Change and Environment Officer (CCEO)” who is implementing the project for three years under the Agriculture Ministry.
After its inception, the project is presently training some three Meteorological personnel in Lagos, Nigeria to be qualified as WMO Class II Meteorological Forecasters. It is a two years training programme that started in September last year. The second batch of three Meteorological officers and one pupil meteorologist are expected to leave later this year for Nigeria and India respectively.
IFAD has completed the weather station for the department at Kabala, Kono, Kenema and Kailahun and we have assigned our personnel to these stations waiting the final handing over by the end of this month. IFAD has included in their budget the payment of monthly incentives to the personnel that are manning these stations.