Professor Laban Ogallo, Director of IGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC), based in Nairobi, Kenya, shares his view on the importance of AMESD program from national and regional perspectives. ICPAC, which functions in the IGAD region, is one of the five AMESD Regional Implementation Centres (RICs) in Africa.

It is estimated that nearly 76% of the IGAD region is composed of arid and semi-arid lands which are characterized by high variability of rainfall and deteriorated by severe land degradation. What are the roles and challenges of ICPAC towards mitigating the major climatic/environmental challenges in the region?

ICPAC provides timely climate early warning information for the mitigation of adverse impacts of climate variability and climate change. It develops an improved, pro-active, timely and broad-based system of climatic and environmental information at both regional and national levels through its national partners. It also attempts to maintain quality-controlled databases and information systems which are required for risk and vulnerability assessment, mapping of hazards and climate change impacts. General support is also provided to the national and regional disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation strategies.

The major challenge that ICPAC faces in implementing its objectives is the fact that national partners have limited technical and human capacity. Also, unreliable and inadequate telecommunications network and infrastructure in the IGAD region is a challenge. Limited understanding by policy makers on the linkage between climate variability/change and development affects the efficient utilization of its products. Being a specialized technical institution of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), ICPAC has to reorganize and integrate, in an effective manner, all its activities in order to meet the growing challenges, needs and expectations of the IGAD sub-region and other national, regional and international partners at large.

What is the importance of having updated environmental data at institutional level to mitigate the environmental challenges in the region?

ICPAC, being one of the Regional Implementing Centres (RICs) in Africa, see the importance of having updated environmental data (EO/ancillary data of AMESD) as a way for understanding the underlying processes, mapping of the available resources and changing patterns. It also helps to identify causes of any changing patterns which are critical information for sustainable planning and management of the regional resources.

What types of measures are being taken in terms of integrating the data into policy measures at national and regional levels?

ICPAC plans to distribute AMESD services and products to research institutions, universities, policymakers, internal and external partners as well as environmental experts after undertaking user needs assessments to package the products and services targeted specifically to the champion users.

The use of space based data and information is one of the key pillars of ICPAC’s strategic plan. The actions ICPAC plans to take to integrate the data into policy measures at national and regional levels would include raising awareness among the policy makers and simplifying the products to the levels that could facilitate actions.

Where do you see ICPAC in the Future?

ICPAC is at an important stage of strategizing to take key steps towards fulfilling its vision of becoming a regional centre of excellence for climate risk reduction for sustainable development in East Africa. This will caution the region against the adverse impacts of present climate extremes and enhance adaptation to the threats of future climate risks and the underlying monitoring of natural resources.