25th August, 2017 Tonga’s Director of Meteorology, Ofa Fa’anunu has signed a Technical Cooperation Agreement with the Regional Integrated Multi-hazard Early Warning System (RIMES) for Africa, Asia and the Pacific Director Mr. A. R. Subbiah during the 9th Council Meeting of RIMES in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea from 23-24 August 2017.
Speaking from Port Moresby Mr. Fa’anunu stated “Signing this Agreement with RIMES here is an important milestone and a step forward in putting in place mechanisms that will assist in the development of our National Met Service. Signing this Agreement means Tonga will have access to Multi-hazard Early Warning expertise available at the RIMES Centre at the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok, Thailand. One of the challenges we have in Tonga in Early Warning System development is building the capacity and competency of operational staff to be able to provide accurate and reliable early warning products and services. One of our priorities in Tonga is to build our capacity in weather and climate monitoring and service delivery with respect to maritime operations as well as tsunami response. Currently one of our Meteorologists, Mr. Gary Vite is attached to RIMES on a 3 month working attachment on a cost sharing arrangement. We envisage that other operational staff will rotate into the center to gain much needed operational experience on an on-going basis.”
Fa’anunu also added, “This partnership with RIMES will also assist the Met Office in implementing the Pacific Resilience Project (PREP) currently underway until the year 2020 in Tonga. It is the vision of Government through MEIDECC to build Tonga’s Resilience to extreme weather and geophysical hazards and the Met Service is among the agencies at the forefront of building this resilience. This means that we have to be competent and ready to deliver the services in an accurate and timely manner. We are grateful to the great leadership and support of our Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for MEIDECC and the CEO in ensuring that Tonga’s early warning system is strengthened. What we have achieved here today is a tribute to their commitment and support.”
During the RIMES meeting the Members of the Council also commissioned the new RIMES Sub-Regional Office in Papua New Guinea which was fully funded by the PNG Government and expected to serve the Pacific countries in the years to come.
The RIMES Council meeting is attended by 42 countries from Africa, Asia and the Pacific and concludes today (25 August 2017) with the 3rd RIMES Ministerial Conference.
ENDS
Issued by the: Ministry of Meteorology, Energy, Information, Disaster Management, Environment, Climate Change & Communications.