Recent rainfall data for South Eastern Ethiopia show trends of overall declines in rainfall between March and September from 1980 to the present. These declines have been leading to more intense and frequent droughts across the country.
The goal of the Programme is to strengthen the operational resources of National Meteorological Services to further provide weather/climate information and services to rural farmers and strengthen early warning systems for weather and climate risk management in the agricultural sector.
The purpose of the project is that smallholder farmers are able to access, interpret and use climate information and related agro-advisories for farm level planning and decision making. The first phase of this project has shown an increase in crop yields of up to 34% for some of the farmers who used the climate information provided.