We are participating in COP29, currently being held in Baku, Azerbaijan—an opportunity to address the challenges of the climate crisis with concrete solutions. During this event, we will present our activities within the AMHEWAS program and demonstrate how the myDEWETRA platform can contribute to better water resource management
Emissions reduction, climate financing for developing countries, adaptation, and resilience to environmental emergencies are the key themes of the UN Climate Change Conference—COP29, taking place from November 11 to 22 in Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital. This annual event consolidates global actions against climate change, accelerating the implementation of international commitments. The conference is an important platform for sharing technologies, approaches, and solutions and finding common synergies to tackle this global issue.
At the core of CIMA Research Foundation’s mission lies the link between civil protection, risk reduction, and climate change. Thus, COP29 is a key opportunity for us to engage internationally on the technical and scientific strategies needed to effectively mitigate and adapt to a warming planet.
The geographic focus of our sessions is on Africa, one of the continents most vulnerable to the climate crisis. Here, we have conducted studies on displacement due to disasters and are advancing the AMHEWAS program to establish a continental alert system. Alongside AMHEWAS, we are also presenting the myDEWETRA platform, a technology tool essential to situation rooms being set up in several African regions.
myDEWETRA is a long-standing tool of CIMA Research Foundation, increasingly adopted due to its flexibility for national-level implementation and configuration tailored to each country’s needs. This platform gathers, analyzes, and shares data from multiple sources in a single interface, facilitating its use for forecasting and monitoring natural phenomena. “One recent example is in a project funded by the EU and implemented by AICS, in which we are a technical partner in Ethiopia alongside Italy’s CNR,” explains Roberto Rudari, director of CIMA’s Multi-Risk Assessment and Data-Informed Policies program. “A key project goal is to use myDEWETRA as a dashboard for managing water resources.” Appropriately, the platform’s presentation is part of the side event NEXUS Approaches and Source-To-Sea Management: Tools for Enhancing Convention’s Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Pursuits, held on November 13, focusing on water management.
Ethiopia is marked by an apparent paradox: a significant abundance of water resources and considerable hydropower potential on one hand, and on the other, reduced per capita water availability due to rapid population growth and limited agricultural productivity, partly due to a lack of irrigation systems. However, the issue extends beyond agriculture. Ethiopia remains highly vulnerable to hydrogeological and climatic risks: since 2000, 55 extreme meteorological and hydrological events have impacted two out of three residents (about 80 million people), causing 2,000 deaths and over $2 billion in damages (source: EM-DAT).
“Better water resource management could have a major impact both on small-scale agriculture, supporting livelihoods and employment, and on reducing hydrogeological risk,” Rudari says.
“Currently, small-scale agriculture makes up most of Ethiopia’s farming sector, yet production remains very limited and heavily dependent on rainfall fluctuations,” adds Efrem Ferrari, project manager at CIMA Research Foundation. “For this reason, the Ethiopian government has launched the Ten-Year Development Plan for Water and Energy to accelerate sustainable water resource management and basin development, ensuring access to drinking water and sanitation while promoting irrigation to support agriculture. At the same time, this plan aims to improve hydrological risk prevention and warning systems. The AICS project aligns with this goal, focusing on three particularly vulnerable river basins prone to both drought and floods: the Webi Shebele, Lower Awash, and Danakil basins in predominantly arid or semi-arid regions characterized by strong precipitation fluctuations.”
In close collaboration with Ethiopia’s Ministry of Water and Energy (MoWE) and the Basin Development Offices (BDOs) of the involved rivers, the project’s overarching objective is to strengthen institutional capacities at the federal, basin, and sub-basin levels. Practically, CIMA Research Foundation supports these efforts through various integrated interventions across the entire “hydrological chain,” from modernizing the hydro-meteorological observation network—by installing Acronet stations and training ministry personnel for maintenance—to developing hydrological modeling and forecasting systems to improve water resource planning while delivering more accurate hydrological forecasts, both short-term and seasonal. The activities also include establishing a monitoring room and a myDEWETRA-based dashboard to visualize and integrate near real-time hydrological data from multiple sources, ensuring interoperability. “One of the most valuable aspects of this tool, particularly in this context, is its ability to connect diverse entities, data, and even nations. The platform will communicate with the National Situation Room, which we are establishing in Ethiopia as part of the AMHEWAS program, where the continental situation room is already in place,” concludes Rudari. “COP29 represents a unique opportunity to strengthen international collaborations and accelerate the adoption of solutions that protect vulnerable communities, supporting tangible climate resilience in Africa and beyond.”