L-R: Director-General of ACMAD, Dr Andre Kamga Foamouhoue and UN-ASG Mohamed Beavogui, Director-General, African Risk Capacity exchanging copies of the MoU on Tuesday, December 10, 21019 during the just concluded COP25 in Madrid, Spain.
Madrid, December 10, 2019: The African Risk Capacity (ARC) and the African Center of Meteorological Applications for Development (ACMAD) today in Madrid, Spain, on the margins of the ongoing UN Climate Change Conference COP 25, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to work together in providing African Union Member States with reliable weather and climate data services and more resilient climate risk insurance schemes.
ACMAD and ARC share a common vision of a resilient African continent that is well equipped with the required capacity and relevant data to support regional early warning for floods, droughts, cyclones and other extremes weather events.
Speaking at the signing ceremony, UN-ASG Mohamed Beavogui, Director-General, African Risk Capacity shared his optimism that the partnership will further assist AU Members States to build capacity at national levels on the applications of meteorology, develop methods and tools. “Our objective is to help strengthen Africa’s capacity to participate in global weather and climate programmes by providing our Member States with specialized training to better understand their risk profiles and develop customised tools that support preparedness, early warning and timely response to disaster eventsâ€, he said.
ACMAD is an inter-governmental institution under the aegis of United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) with a continental mandate. The centre was created in 1985 by the resolution 540 of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa with the support of the World Meteorological Organization for the purpose of acting as the continental weather and climate watch institution for Africa and the African Centre of excellence on the applications of meteorology for sustainable development.
In his response, the Director-General of ACMAD, Dr Andre Kamga Foamouhoue, expressed his optimism that the partnership agreement with ARC will provide the needed synergy towards boosting food security and promoting Africa’s sustainable development.  Thus ACMAD which is an institution which provides weather/climate advisories, watches, outlooks and vigilance products to support risk assessments, disaster preparedness, early response and recovery is a key player in the disaster risk management institutional and operational framework. , has signed this partnership to progressively set up a mechanism which would allow ARC TO DISBURS payments for countries experiencing drought a little earlier using advisories and outlooks. This would allow the necessary commodity reserves to be put in place before the prices of foodstuffs in particular experience high inflation in commodity markets due to short supply linked to anomalous weather and climate events negatively impacting production and conservation of agriculture products.
Recently, the AU Ministers in recognition of the pan-African role which ACMAD plays in the generation and delivery of focused high-resolution climate data as well as training and capacity development for enhanced decision making by member States supporting weather and climate action made a step forward towards endorsement of the Centre as the technical arm of the AUC on Weather and Climate matters.
The African Risk Capacity model is home-grown, innovative, cost-effective, and is proving that it can assist member-states to strengthen their capacities to better plan, prepare and respond to extreme weather events and natural disasters, thereby achieving the food security for their populations.
With the support of the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Canada, France, The Rockefeller Foundation and the United States, ARC assists AU Member States in reducing the risk of loss and damage caused by extreme weather events affecting Africa’s populations by providing, through sovereign disaster risk insurance, targeted responses to natural disasters in a more timely, cost-effective, objective and transparent manner. ARC is now using its expertise to help tackle some of the other greatest threats faced by the continent, including outbreaks and epidemics.
Since 2014, 37 policies have been signed by Member States with US$74million paid in premiums for a cumulative insurance coverage of US$544million for the protection of 54million vulnerable population in participating countries.
For more information, please visit:
www.africanriskcapacity.org
www.acmad.net
PRESS CONTACT: Chinedu Moghalu, chinedu.moghalu@africanriskcapacity.org
chinedu.moghalu@wfp.org
ACMAD: s.bayala@acmad.org sergemeteo@gmail.com
 