WMO Bulletin: early warning and anticipatory action

The newly published WMO Bulletin complements the theme of World Meteorological Day, “Early Warning and Early Action,” and seeks to inform discussion ahead of this May’s Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction in Bali, Indonesia. The Bulletin focusses on “Early warning and anticipatory action” with articles on harnessing technology and services, risk to resilience, the Global Multi-hazard Alert System, the WMO-UNDRR Centre of Excellence and on gender equality in the context of disaster risk reduction.

“Early Warning Systems provide more than a tenfold return on investment, a 24-hour warning of a coming storm or heatwave can cut the ensuing damage by 30%. Spending US$ 800 million on such systems in developing countries would avoid losses of US$3–US$16 billion per year. And yet, despite these known great benefits, one in three people globally is still not covered by early warning services – that proportion is almost twice as high in Africa. Vulnerable people are disproportionately affected,” writes Prof. Taalas.