Our Rich Past
Sierra Leone was the Head Quarter (HQ) of the then British West African Meteorological Services that was established in 1923.The Sierra Leone Meteorological Department, an offshoot of the British West African Meteorological Service, was established on April 27, 1961.
The responsibilities of the department are as follows:
- Safety and well-being of citizens and their protection against severe weather situation and devastation from natural disasters.
- Provision of reliable climatic data to facilitate project design for agricultural planning and implementation, water supply systems, infrastructure, tourism etc.
- Contributing to the
socio-economic (including proving end-user services for agricultural, marine, etc) development of the country. - Ensuring maintenance of the quality of the nation’s environment
- Carry our weather and climate-related activities e.g. Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), Climate Change
What we have done
We have been carrying out most of our core functions especially in Aviation, Marine and the Agriculture sectors. Due to the shortage of staff and in preparation for the new stations that were planned to be established, we requested the Human Resource Management Office (HRMO) to recruit:
- Thirty (30) meteorological Observers;
- Three (3) Meteorological Officers; and
- Three (3) Pupil Meteorologists.
We are also collaborating with the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security (MAFFS) in FEWSNET/CILSS Food Security Monitoring and Early Warning.
Our service to the Aviation, Marine, Environment, Disaster Management etc cannot be overemphasized for the simple reason that no Aircraft or Ship accidents have occurred in our country despite the growing number of fleets. Our participation in the yearly July, August and September (JAS) Forecast exercise made us introduce the Early Warning Systems and Seasonal Forecasting Mechanism (Planning/ Training stage).
Clearance for the Third National Communication
The national communications are the periodic assessment of countries sources and sinks of greenhouse gases taking into consideration the national circumstances and the necessary solutions to address the likely effects of the perceived climate change issues. The compilation is one of the obligations of countries to the United Nations Frame Work Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The work is done under the Ministry of Transport and Aviation in the Climate Change Project (CCP).We Third National Communication (TNC) is more than half way through as most of the activities were done last including the compilation of the Inventory, Systematic Observation and the mitigation assessment. The relevant project document can be accessed on the CCP-SL website as “Project Cooperation Agreement (PCA) for the Third National Communication Project” The TNC project was launched in February this year by the Hon Deputy Minister of Transport and Aviation on behalf of the Ministry of Transport and Aviation. From the cooperation from GEF, the implementation of the TNC is done under United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
United Nation Environment Programme (UNEP) project “Evolution of protected Area (PA) system with regard to climate change in West Africa Region”
The United Nation Environment Programme (UNEP) Project “Evolution of protected Area (PA) system with regard to climate change in West Africa Region” was developed during our sub regional planning meeting in Dakar in 2012 in preparation for the Duban Conference of (COP17) as one of our sub regional concern/ effort in addressing the rapid deforestation (recipe for Global Warming/climate change). The forest divisional heads of each country were invited to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where this project was formulated. Before the departure of the team, we gave our input from the meteorological point of view to include the erection of weather/climate monitoring station in each of the protected areas, the collaborative undertaking of scientific research with other stakeholders in climate modelling and mapping for species movement and necessary control measures.
The Meteorological Agency is a member of the steering committee that was set to monitor the implementation of the Project and the Project Document can also be a “United Nation programme- Evolution of protected Area (PA) system with regard to Climate Change in the West Africa region”. The Global Environment Facilities (GEF) funded Project is in the pilot phase in Chad, The Gambia, Mali, Sierra Leone and Togo. Its implementation in Sierra Leone is under the direct supervision of the Environment Protection Agency-Sierra Leone (EPA-SL), with the forest division of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food Security (MAFF) and the Meteorological Department as key players.
Strengthening Climate information and Early Warning systems in Western and Central Africa for climate resilient Development and Adaptation to Climate Change Sierra Leone
During the COP17 in 2011, the issue of Early Warning System (EWS) was presented as a concern and capacity need for our region. A task force was set up for the formulation of a project that will address this issue. The Director and Dr. Bangura of EPA-SL represented Sierra Leone and drafted our project document with input from MAFF, Ministry of Health (MOH) and other stakeholders. These documents from the respective countries were forwarded through UNEP and used to get the regional project mentioned above.The Meteorological Department is also represented on the expert group for the project implementation. We held the project inception workshop at Kenema on Wednesday, 4th July, 2014 where we were given our expected roles during the project implementation. It is based under the crop Division of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food Security.The project document is known as gef - project Identification Form (PIF)” for Sierra Leone on the GEF website under ‘funded projects’ for your attention.MET continue to play active role in activities of the project by providing the necessary meteorological data needed for the Meteorological Module of the FSEWS