Information on the launching workshop of the CR4D AAS research project

Tuesday, August 13, 2019

As part of the Climate Research for Development (CR4D) initiative of The African Academy of Sciences (The AAS), the research consortium composed by the Centre for Ecological Monitoring (CSE), the Laboratory of Atmospheric Physics and Oceanography Simeon Fongang (‘‘LPAO-SF’’), the Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD), the Planning, Research and Statistics Directorate (DPRS) of the Ministry of Health and Social Action (MSAS), the University Gaston Berger of Saint-Louis (UGB) and the National Agency of Civil Aviation and Meteorology (ANACIM) officially launched the research project « Implementing an early warning system for building communities’ resilience to health impacts of climate change in the North of Senegal (IW4HI) » on 30 and 31 July 2019 at the Centre for Ecological Monitoring conference room. The project's objective is to strengthen the resilience of the health system and the communities that face health impacts associated with heatwaves through setting-up an early warning system capable of detecting heatwave events in the North of Senegal.

This technical and sharing workshop brought together the main stakeholders of the consortium as well as young researchers (masters and PhD students) and the Senegalese National Red Cross interested in setting up an early warning system as part of their disaster risk reduction strategy related to climate change. The objective of the workshop was to ensure a good understanding of the project context, the objectives and the activities planned to achieve the expected results.

The Director-General of the Centre for Ecological Monitoring who chaired the workshop stressed the importance of the project in the development of climate services for health to ensure the monitoring and the management of health impacts during periods of heatwave. His intervention was followed by a series of communications realized by the various project stakeholders who highlighted the main methodologies and results obtained in their research on the issues related to the rise in temperatures in the framework of the project Heatwave Alert and Impacts on Health in the Sahel.

The workshop helped to refine the methodological approach of the project, define the types of data necessary for achieving the objectives and the tasks entrusted to each institution in the framework of the work-packages, as well as the institutional set-up. To do this, planning of the activities and the chronogram of the tasks were realized according to the work packages that are under the responsibility of the focal points within the different partner institutions of the project. All stakeholders who had shown their willingness to collaborate for the success of the project validated the agenda of the activities implementation.

For better monitoring of the project activities, monthly inter and intra WP meetings will be organized in order to follow the evolution of the tasks but also to evaluate the quality of the outputs provided by the WP managers. A project meeting will be planned every two months to make the necessary adjustments in the implementation of planned activities.Read more ....