Could mobile phone masts be a vital tool in helping Africans prepare for the future?

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has reported on a pioneering project to deploy 5,000 automatic weather stations across Africa, which could be key to boosting climate data.

According to the announcement, the weather stations will be mounted on phone masts and will gather information on aspects of weather such as rainfall and wind, and then send it to national weather agencies.

Kofi Annan is President of the Global Humanitarian Forum, which is formally launching the programme, known as ‘Weather Info for All’, together with telecommunications company Ericsson at the Global Platform Disaster Risk Reduction meeting in Geneva. He said: “The world’s poorest are also the world’s most vulnerable when it comes to the impact of climate change, and the least equipped to deal with its consequences.

“Today you find cell phone towers in almost every part of Africa. We have never been able to establish weather monitoring on that scale.”

Over 70% of Africans make a living from farming, and the vast majority of the continents agriculture is rain-fed, making it highly vulnerable to variability in weather and climate.

According to Michel Jarraud, Secretary-General of the WMO: “We see the ‘Weather Info for All’ initiative as a major pan-African effort to empower our 188 (nation) members to provide enhanced weather information and services.

“For food production, almost every decision is linked to weather, climate and water parameters.”

Africa has less than 200 weather stations meeting WMO standards. Europe, by comparison has several thousand.

The initiative hinges on a collaboration by mobile phone companies to take part. So far, the project’s pilot phase has seen 19 stations established around Lake Victoria in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.