LAHORE: The Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) officials are providing weeklong training to Afghan officials as four PDM deputy directors are in Afghanistan to train some 30 Afghan trainee officials.
Pakistan has extended cooperation to Afghanistan under South Asia Hydro-met Forum (SAHF) Regional Integrated Multi-Hazard Early Warning System for Africa and Asia (RIMES), said sources.
The executive committee members of SAHF are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. The forum has been constituted for providing strategies and future direction on weather forecasting.
According to the sources, the training programme will be followed by dispatching Met inspectors to Afghanistan for training on how to install observatories.
They said Pakistan has taken the initiative to get 24 hours advance information as no data from Afghanistan is available due to the absence of weather forecasting system there.
So far, the Met office gets weather updates from observatories installed in Quetta. However, Pakistan would be able to get data from Afghanistan after the installation of observatories there, they added.
The sources said the Afghan government was planning to engage Indian Met officials but Pakistan officials offered their services. They said Director General PMD Mahr Sahibzad Khan will attend the concluding ceremony on coming Friday.
It may be noted that Pakistan has started collaborating with other South Asian countries to share knowledge, resources and strategies to forestall impending adverse effects of climate change. Officials from the ministry of climate change and the ministry of aviation have recently attended an executive level meeting in Thailand.
The director general of meteorological department also attended the meeting on impact-based forecasting to avoid human and material loss in the region out of climate change phenomenon.
Pakistan has also agreed to share the facility of Institute of Meteorology and Geo-Physics Karachi to impart training to the regional forecasters from Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and Maldives.
The World Meteorological Organization has agreed to fund the training programme the courses schedule will be shared with the regional bodies in the next meeting due in the month of February.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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