The Early Warnings for All Accelerator for LDCs and SIDS project targets seven countries: Comoros, Kiribati,  Madagascar, Mauritius, Nepal, Solomon Islands and Tonga. Economic and social life in these countries is intricately linked to climate and the natural environment, making them more vulnerable to climate variations and change. While the scale of disaster and climate impacts vary from country to country, the vulnerabilities in these countries stem from common factors: topography and complex geographies; reliance on climate-sensitive economic activities; water dependency; high debt burdens; and climate variability and emerging risks. The countries suffer from a combined average annual loss to disasters of over US$ 300 million.

With support from USAID Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance, The EWS-F targets 14 Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in Central America, the Caribbean, the Pacific, and the Southwest Indian Ocean. The project was designed to expand WMO Members’ capabilities to better predict and manage  floods, namely, riverine floods, urban floods, and flash floods as well as drought and other related hydrometeorological hazards.  Integration with existing tools and interoperability of the systems are some of the core principles of this project. The efforts under this project are aligned with the EW4All initiative. 

Of the 4.3 billion people living in Asia Pacific, it is the 2.3 million inhabiting the Pacific’s Small Island Developing States (SIDS) who face the highest level of disaster and climate risk. The Asia Pacific Disaster Report 2019 rates the risk level as 3 to 4 times that of any other population in the entire region. The World Risk Report 2018 places five Pacific SIDS among its ten most at-risk countries in the world. The Pacific is on the frontline of the climate crisis.  CREWS Pacific SIDS 2.0 is the second regional CREWS Project in the Pacific. This project is an extension of the CREWS Pacific SIDS project (2017-2021) and aims to upscale its efforts in the Pacific Region. CREWS Pacific SIDS 2.0 seeks to strengthen existing early warning systems that are part of the region’s stronger and more comprehensive human security and resilience agenda. The project contributes to the SENDAI Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, WMO’s Long-Term Goals and Strategic Objectives, the Kainaki II Declaration, as well as the priorities of the Pacific Islands Meteorology Strategy (PIMS) 2017-2026. 

The adverse impacts of climate change are a major challenge to the socio-economic development of developing countries, particularly the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and Land-locked Developing Countries (LLDCs). The 79 Members of the Organization of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) are considered to be the most vulnerable countries to the existential threats of climate change. Yet Member States of the OACPS have contributed least to greenhouse gas emissions.The Intra-ACP Climate Services and related Applications Programme (ClimSA) is a EUR 85 M initiative of the OACPS and the European Union. It is an important investment under the 11th European Development Fund (EDF) aiming to strengthen the climate services value chain: from access to information, generation and provision of climate services to engagement and capacity building of users to ensure utilization of these services.ClimSA aims to support the climate information services value chain with technical assistance, financial assistance, and infrastructure and capacity building support to improve wide access and use of climate information and applications for decision making processes at all levels, in the six regions of the OACPS through eight Regional Climate Centres (RCCs).As main users of climate services and the bridge to other final users, the African Regional Economic Communities (RECs), the African Union Commission (AUC), the Caribbean Meteorological Organization (CMO) and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) will be the focus of the action to ensure sustainability and utilization of climate services. 

Flash floods are among the world’s deadliest natural disasters with more than 5 000 lives lost annually. Their social, economic and environmental impacts are significant. Accounting for approximately 85% of flooding cases, flash floods also have the highest mortality rate among different classes of flooding, including riverine and coastal. Flash floods differ from river floods in their short time scales and occurrence on small spatial scales, which makes flash flood forecasting a different challenge from large-river flood forecasting. In flash floods forecasting, we are concerned mostly with the forecast of occurrence, and focus on two causative events: 1) intense rainfall; and 2) rainfall on saturated soils. Flash floods occur throughout the world, and the development times vary across regions from minutes to several hours depending on the land surface, geomorphological and hydrometeorological characteristics of the region. However, for the majority of these areas, there exists no formal process or capacity for developing flash flood warnings.

The Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs) are particularly vulnerable to the adverse impacts of hydro-meteorological events and climate change. The island economies and livelihoods are regularly affected by hydro-meteorological hazards such as tropical cyclones, heavy rains, drought, sea level rise and storm surges. With the desired impact of reduced loss of human life and reduced economic losses due to hydro-meteorological extreme events in the Pacific, the Climate Risk and Early Warning Systems (CREWS) Initiative has allocated US$ 2.5 million to this WMO-led project. The project works to build NMHSs capacities through ensuring necessary institutional framework and strategies are in place, modernizing forecasting facilities, enhancing service delivery, and implementing community based early warning systems.

The CIFDP- F is facilitating the development of efficient forecasting and warning systems for coastal inundation based on robust science and observations, along vulnerable coastal areas in Fiji. In doing so, the CIFDP-F will integrate cross-cutting scientific models into an open forecasting environment for the purpose of improving/ expanding/ developing the forecasting and warning systems for storm surges, hydrological response to heavy rainfall and Tropical Cyclone landfall on coastal areas, and other phenomena causing coastal inundation. Beneficiary groups  are mainly coastal communities in Fiji in the immediate term, through the improved performance of national institutions responsible for coastal disaster forecasting, warning, and climate adaptation planning. Every year, populations in coastal zones are impacted by coastal inundation caused by waves, including long period swell, storm surges and hydrological inundation, resulting in loss of life and damage to property. The results of this project will provide critical information to improve forecasting, warning, and evacuation planning in coastal zones.            The beneficiary sectors will include the coastal residents (end users) in agriculture, fishery, tourism and other industries, disaster managers in central and regional governments (intermediary users). In particular, improved forecasting services will serve greatly to ensure safe operation of tourism business, which is a major source of Fiji’s income. The project is divided into phases to be implemented within the period 2016 to 2020 and a total budget of USD 1.2 million, generously provided by the Korea Meteorological Administration.

Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) has allocated CAD $10 million to the project Building Resilience to High-Impact Hydro-Meterological Events through Strengthening Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and South East Asia, representing its institutional support to the Climate Risk and Early Warning Systems (CREWS) initiative. An additional CAD 3.3 million has been provided from the CREWS Multi-Donor Trust Fund. Running until March 2021, the multi-country project will strengthen weather-, climate-, and water-related impact-based decision support services, protecting lives and property in three regions: South East Asia, the Caribbean, and the Pacific.