Southern African Regional Climate Information Services for Disaster Resilience Development (SARCIS-DR) Project

The SARCIS-DR Project, which is being implemented by SADC Climate Services Centre (CSC), aims to improve the core capacities of national and regional climate centres (RCC) to meet the needs of Disaster Risk Management (DRM) agencies and socio-economic sectors for effective use of weather and climate services and community-focused and real-time early warning systems (EWS). The project is being implemented in the framework of the continent-wide Satellite and Weather Information for Disaster Resilience in Africa (SAWIDRA) project, which is funded by the European Union through the African Development Bank (AfDB).

The Project is being implemented in the 16 SADC Member States, to increase the capability of SADC countries to respond to climate induced disasters and reduce loss of lives and property damage. The timeframe for project implementation is 23 months from 1st April to 28 February 2020, providing technical assistance to CSC and SADC’s National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs). It will develop the capacity to use numerical weather prediction (NWP) models and regional climate models (RCMs) for seasonal climate prediction.
Three outcomes are expected at the end of project implementation, namely:

• (i) Core capacities of SADC-CSC and SADC-NMHSs improved, to meet the needs of DRM agencies;
• (ii) effective integration of regional early warning systems (EWS) operationalized; and
• (iii) Competent teams of national and regional experts trained to respond to the needs of national disaster risk management.