SWALIM continues to strengthen its partnerships with local disaster management authorities; HADMA, NERAD and SoDMA, in Puntland, Somaliland and Southern and Central regions, respectively. The partnerships aim to strengthen existing early warning systems in Somalia.  In July, a course on Disaster Risk Reduction and Early Warning will be held in each of the three regions to increase local capacity to reduce disaster risks and build resilient communities. The participants will be drawn mostly from Government ministries.

SWALIM has partnered with the Ministry of Agriculture of the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS) to monitor the climate inside Somalia. Together with the Ministry, SWALIM will install an additional four automatic weather stations and two manual rain gauges in the southern parts of the country where SWALIM’s monitoring network is sparse. The new AWS will be installed in Baidoa, Mogadishu, Jowhar and another location still to be determined.

To improve groundwater monitoring, SWALIM has acquired state-of-the-art groundwater monitoring equipment (known as divers) for installation in aquifers at sites in major cities across the country. The new divers record water level, salinity and temperature in boreholes twice a day, and transmit the data via satellite in near real time.  During the month of July, six automatic divers will be installed in Hargeisa, Borama and Berbera in Somaliland; and Garowe, Bossaso and Galkayo in Puntland. Installation in the south will follow in August.

The 2016 ICT4D Conference is a global event that has evolved over the past 8 years gathering together a large group of international development professionals who are applying innovations in technology to development work.

During the week of 2-6 May, 2016, the SWALIM CTA was in Switzerland to receive the coveted WSIS award as a “Champion” in the category of “e-Agriculture”.  The WSIS prize, organized by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), recognizes innovative and successful efforts to harness ICTs in development work around the world.

SWALIM has been working on expanding the capacity of Somali government line ministries and partner agencies on the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) by conducting an intensive training course on “Basic GIS, Google Earth and Global Positioning System (GPS)”  in Mogadishu.

Heavy storms have been reported  in parts of Awdal and Wooqoyi Galbeed regions in Somaliland. The storms have led destruction of structures, loss of unconfirmed number of livestock and six human lives. For details refer to Somalia Rainfall Forecast 07-04-2016

As part of its ongoing capacity-building efforts to the Somali line ministries, SWALIM carried out nine days of practical training on open-source Geographic Information Systems (GIS) tools and methods for mapping Land Degradation and Land Cover using remote sensing technologies. The hand-on courses were delivered within the Puntland Ministry of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism (MoEWT).

In support of capacity building on Geographic Information Systems (GIS), SWALIM staff carried out three days of training on hardware and software setup, testing and instrument calibration within the Puntland Ministry of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism (MoEWT).