Climandes: Tailored forecasts for Peru

Climate change and climate variability affects those in poverty the most severely as their options for adapting are limited. Tailored weather and climate forecasts are thus all the more important for the people concerned.

Andean farmers in traditional dress working in the field. They are an important target group for Climandes.
© Enrique Castro-Mendivil, PromPerú

Two national meteorological services, MeteoSwiss and SENAMHI Peru, were working together on the Climandes project to ensure that simple farmers in Peru get appropriate weather and climate forecasts at the right time. Climandes has thus helped to address the concerns of the Global Framework for Climate Services GFCS.

Helping farmers to help themselves

In Peru, it is a common occurrence for crops to fail due to heavy precipitation, persistent drought, frost or hail. If farmers are given sufficient warning of such weather events, they can take steps to protect their harvest. The Climandes project provided tailored weather and climate forecasts together with the requisite training for the agricultural sector in the Andes, thus developing weather and Climate services. Climandes has provided farmers with the means to help themselves and contributed towards food security – an absolute necessity for sustainable global development.

A SENAMHI colleague asks a farmer about her needs.
© SENAMHI Peru

Successful bridge-building in Peru

The common aim of the project partners was to build bridges with the small-scale farmers. In order to achieve this, the project worked closely with the farmers to ascertain their needs. Climandes also introduced a systematic approach to working with climate data at SENAMHI Peru, as without reliable data, there can be no reliable forecasts. Another important prong to the project was the upgrading of the meteorologists’ professional and academic education in meteorology and climatology.

Switzerland + Peru = Climandes

Climandes was based on the principle of knowledge exchange between Switzerland and Peru and has been supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). It is a pilot project of the Global Framework for Climate Services GFCS under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). The project has been successfully completed in March 2019.

Links

Climandes

Project Climandes on the website of MeteoSwiss (in German).

Last modification 05.05.2023