In 2018, only 40 percent of Africa’s population had access to Early Warning Systems (EWS), resulting in poor advance notice to hazards from natural phenomena, and thus to greater losses. However, in recent years, considerable progress has been made across Africa in making environmental emergency responses faster and better coordinated.
A good example of this work is the Africa Multi-Hazard Early Warning System, an ambitious project led by the African Union Commission and inspired by the experience of Italy’s Civil Protection Department. Funded by Italy’s Foreign Affairs Ministry and Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS), and implemented by UNDRR and the CIMA Research Foundation, the programme aims to build an early warning and response system to monitor and manage climate hazards promptly.
The AMHEWAS network as a climate change adaptation tool
One of the outcomes of AMHEWAS is the creation of strategic “situation rooms” in different African nations, operating 24 hours a day. Regional and continental situation rooms are found in Ethiopia, Kenya, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Mozambique, while 2024 saw the inauguration of national centres in Sudan and Tanzania. Between 2025 and 2026, additional centres will be added in Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mozambique. These centres are connected through the myDEWETRA platform, developed by the CIMA Foundation, which enables the collection and real-time broadcasting of information on natural hazards, such as floods, droughts, and wildfires. In addition to mitigating risks and preventing disasters, the network aims to promote cultural change, boosting community resilience in the face of anthropogenic climate change.
“From the first meetings with African leaders in 2018, it was clear that technology and data collection would be the easiest thing to implement, because many resources are already available,” CIMA Foundation President Luca Ferraris tells Renewable Matter. “Meanwhile, the greatest challenge would have been training people and building capacity, i.e. the support needed to develop and consolidate an early warning system that can work continuously on a continental scale, particularly from a funding perspective.”
One of the first situation rooms, the continental one, was inaugurated in Addis Ababa, on the same site as the headquarters of the African Union Commission. The facility is supplied data from the other regional situation rooms distributed throughout the continent, in East, West, Central, and Southern Africa, each with its own reference body. The situation rooms will collect and share data in real time to ensure coordinated emergency responses and rapid support, even across different countries.
Early Warning Systems (EWS), from infrastructure to dialogue
The creation of situation rooms takes place in collaboration with the African Commission and Member States, but it also involves a gradual approach, accounting for differences between countries in terms of space, time, and resources. “In Italy, the creation of a national early warning system required nearly twenty years of work and the involvement of many stakeholders: from local and regional authorities to individual citizens,” explains Ferraris. “The African system, extremely complex and consisting of many countries, regions, and communities, faces similar challenges, yet amplified by cultural and infrastructure differences. In addition to data and technology management, another key issue is getting the population to adapt, which will require continuous growth, also in terms of awareness. This doesn't just mean applying mathematical and technical modelling, but also understanding and implementing behaviours that can reduce risks and improve community resilience.”
This is the reason for necessary dialogue at a continental, regional, and national level, and with local communities. “This dialogue has to be a two-way street: communicating information is not enough; it is also vital that people's needs and difficulties are heard. If communication were one-directional, this would risk reducing the opportunity to really involve the population, treating people as passive subjects to be moved in the event of an emergency, rather than as key actors in the protection process. It's not a simple matter of telling the population ‘you have to evacuate’. Their worries must be heard so we can act in a way that allows our movements and decisions to be understood and accepted. This approach aims to respect individual freedom while also guaranteeing community safety, creating a collaboration pact between institutions and citizens.”