ADDIS ABABA: As part of Ethiopia's continued action against climate change, the Water and Energy Ministry said on Thursday that it was implementing a number of new projects to help curtail the impact in the East African country. Water and Energy Minister Alemayehu Tegenu told a workshop on upgrading hydro-metererological networks that the ministry was looking at boosting data collection, processing and analysis in order to develop new action-plans for the country. Ethiopia, he said, “is implementing sustainable development in all directions to end poverty.” He added that the role of the “water and energy sectors in enhancing the country's development was immense.” Environment experts present at the workshop told Bikyamasr.com they hoped that the ministry would follow through on the goals, citing recent upsurges in drought and potential famine as a result of climate change. The Minister said information to be collected regarding the country's water basins “had paramount importance in enhancing development and attaining Ethiopia's vision to be a middle income country.” He said the ministry was “currently operating 489 water gauging stations in 12 river basins of the country. The data collection activities focused on stream flow data, suspended sediment data, ground water depth and quantity and quality.” According to the ministry, it has a plan to expand the hydrological observation network to satisfy the minimum requirements of the World Meteorological Organization and improve data dissemination with existing technology. The Director for Food Security and Sustainable Development Division of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) Josue Dione, said at the workshop “the ECA had taken the lead to conceive and establish the knowledge hub and technical secretariat of the ClimDev-Africa program, namely the African Climate Policy Center (ACPC), which has been operational for two years now.” The ClimDev-Africa program and, therefore, the work of the ACPC, focused on making widely available and disseminating high quality climate information, generating enhanced scientific capacity through analytical work and ensuring informed decision making and effective awareness and advocacy.
