Nirivololona Raholijao

Director General of the NMHS of Madagascar; Permanent Representative of Madagascar with WMO

Dr Nirivololona Raholijao is the current Director General of the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHS) of Madagascar and the Permanent Representative of Madagascar with WMO. She obtained her engineering diploma in meteorology in 1983 from the University of Antananarivo in Madagascar and her doctorate diploma in physics and meteorology in 1987 at the Laboratoire Associé de Météorologie Physique (LAMP) of Blaise Pascal University in Clermont Ferrand, France.

Thanks to a long career of 40 years within the NMHSs, Dr Nirivolona Raholijao is witness to the common NMHS main issues in LDCs such as the progressive degradation of the national observation network but also the change in the frequency and the intensity of extreme weather such as tropical cyclones in Madagascar and their impacts on vulnerable environment and communities.

She used to be the IPCC WGII Vice-chair for Region I during the Fith Assessment Report and she is still the IPCC national focal point.

It is under her mandate as Director General that the NMHS of Madagascar has established collaboration with the health and agriculture sectors for the co-production of climate services for the two sectors facilitating the formulation and dissemination of early warning bulletin and possible impacts.

A woman in glasses is smiling in front of a map.