Mr Michel Jarraud, Secretary-General of WMO, added that such services were neces sary in Africa's struggle against poverty.
"African National Meteorological and Hydrological Services must be seen as actor s of development," Mr Jarraud, told a conference of finance and economy meeting i n Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, under the aegis of the African Union (AU), according to a statement issued by the UN Information Centre in Accra.
"They have an important role to play in regional and international action plans, particularly with regard to evaluating and monitoring the environment," he stated.
Mr. Jarraud emphasised that preparing for natural hazards, agricultural production, water resources and, particularly, climate change, needed to be stepped up in Africa.
Many African countries are among the world's least developed and consequently ar e the most susceptible to threats posed by meteorological and hydrological disas t ers, such as drought, flooding, cyclones, dust storms and other extreme weather e vents, the WMO statement said.
In February, for example, Cyclone Ivan caused catastrophic floods in Mozambique and Madagascar, resulting in enormous losses in human life, agricultural product i on and property.
Drought has plagued many countries across sub-Saharan Africa, causing water shor tages and damaging crops and threatening food security.
"But if more is invested in developing the observational capacities of their nat ional meteorological and hydrological services, improved weather forecasts, impr o ved early warnings of imminent natural hazards and climate change can be made av a ilable to decision-makers and end-users," the statement added.
Mr. Jarraud said that at present, however, African meteorological services could not perform those critical functions.
"Serious gaps still exist in observation networks, often due to instrument and systems failure, as well as the high costs of operation and maintenance," he said , urging African leaders to focus on fixing the problem.
"Leaders can promote this by investing in and developing methods that can assess the socio-economic advantages of national meteorological and hydrological weath e r services," he said.
Accra - 03/04/2008
Panapress
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