Africa-Press – Kenya. The government is revitalising the Kenya Meteorological Department to minimise the impact of weather hazards and help mitigate and adapt to climate change.
Environment CS Soipan Tuya said the demand for timely and accurate meteorological services is and will keep being on the rise.
“Accurate forecasting of weather variables, however, remains a major challenge for most of the scientific community, especially in sub-Saharan Africa,” she said.
“It is for this reason, among the many other ways, including the National Landscape and Restoration Programme towards the growing of 15 billion trees, that we are working to be on the frontline of climate action.”
Tuya spoke on Saturday in Kericho county, when Kenya joined the rest of the world to commemorate World Meteorological Day.
The annual event brings together the entire world to commemorate the establishment of the World Meteorological Organization and to remind the world of the importance and need for meteorological services to address weather and climate issues.
Tuya said the country is proactively and progressively reforming the Kenya Meteorological Department to make it more responsive to its growing importance as a critical safeguard of Kenya’s socioeconomic wellbeing and sustainability.
She said, coupled with an increasingly enlightened population and the climate change effects that Kenya faces, the demand for timely and accurate meteorological services is and will keep being on the rise.
Tuya said the government has invested and is continuing to invest substantially in the revitalisation of the Kenya Meteorological Department, including modernisation of equipment and capacity building of staff.
The CS said the ministry, through the Meteorology Bill, 2023, is currently undergoing procedural legislative motions.
The ministry intends to transition the Kenya Meteorological Department into a Semi-Autonomous State Agency (Saga).
This will strategically reposition KMD to take advantage of emerging and available opportunities to enhance the quality and efficiency of service delivery.
“Most importantly, the ministry is pursuing public-private partnership opportunities that will transform the Kenya Meteorological Department from a cost-centre, as currently set up, into a thriving, profitable institution capable of supporting itself and contributing directly to Kenya’s country’s GDP,” Tuya said.
She said the far-reaching reforms the state is implementing are all geared towards ensuring it is fully aligned to the development agenda of the Kenya Kwanza administration as outlined in the Bottom-up Economic Transformation Agenda.
“We intend to open up value chains, including climate information, for wealth and employment creation. Our desire as a ministry is to have a Kenya Meteorological Department that contributes much more to the socioeconomic progress of our country by playing a more pronounced role in hunger and poverty reduction, improvement of human health and wellbeing, ensuring clean water, as well as clean and affordable energy.”
Tuya said the state is improving Met well aware that most of the GDP drivers, including agriculture and tourism, are climate-sensitive.
“The utility of timely and accurate weather and climate information to us as a country therefore becomes of national importance and a priority,” she said.
“As a ministry, we are also aware that meteorology has been an area of international cooperation for generations. We will keep it that way, not only for the good of the meteorological services to mankind but as a scientific springboard maintained in good condition as a frontline to climate action.”
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