Funded by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS), the project Ready2Act: Enhancing Coordination Mechanisms and Disaster Preparedness Capacities in Mozambique fits within the scope of the EW4All Initiative, which aims to protect all the people on the planet from natural disasters through Early Warning Systems by 2027. The project is led by CIMA Research Foundation, with local support from WeWorld and strategic guidance from the Italian Department of Civil Protection.
Ready2Act strengthens the EWS in Mozambique through a path of technology transfer, training, and institutional strengthening built with the Mozambique Disaster Management Institute (Instituto Nacional de Gestão e Redução do Risco de Desastres, INGD).
CIMA Research Foundation’s contribution
Ready2Act consists of two main components.
The first component involves promoting inter-institutional coordination mechanisms at all levels for disaster – in particular those related to water – preparedness and response. For this reason, the project organizes events for the exchange of experiences, best practices, and lessons learned among the various actors involved in disaster risk reduction at the national and supranational level. It includes the modernization of the INGD’s National Emergency Operations Center (CENOE) and a local-level room in the priority province of central Mozambique, also promoting the connection with the supranational level through the operational room of the SHOC (SADC Humanitarian and Emergency Operations Centre), part of the AMHEWAS network. The two structures are tasked with facilitating data collection, the sharing of alerts, and inter-institutional coordination, becoming operational through the tools and procedures defined during activation.
The second component of Ready2Act strengthens the monitoring, forecasting, and early warning capacities for extreme hydrometeorological events, promoting the connection between early warning and preparatory action. For this purpose, the project provides the water resource management institute (Direcção Nacional de Gestão de Recursos Hídricos, DNGRH) with an operational flood forecasting chain at the country scale and strengthens the myDEWETRA platform, in use at INGD, with the integration of new risk data and the development of computer components dedicated to the assessment of real-time risk scenarios and the compilation and issuance of warnings. Building on the results of previous actions, this second component also works on the use of risk information for civil protection planning, both in terms of programming in anticipation of the rainy season and the operational link between the warning and timely actions in the immediate aftermath of the disaster event.
