Community-run early warning systems

This Technology Transfer Advances The Dominican Republic's

• Nationally Determined Contribution to adopt Risk Management and Early Warning Systems as a strategic planning approach to climate change adaptation. 

Context

Practical Action Consulting (PAC) is the consulting arm of Practical Action, an international non-governmental organisation that uses technology to challenge poverty in developing countries. Through technology PAC enables poor communities to build on their skills and knowledge to produce sustainable and practical solutions - transforming their lives forever and protecting the world around them. Every year PAC uses technology to help over 1 million people out of poverty.

IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (Research Institute for Development) - is a research organization based in France that is working with its partners in the South to address international development issues. Improving health, understanding social changes, and protecting the environment are the main pillars of its work towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). IRD work includes interdisciplinary scientific research, capacity building and nurturing innovation in more than fifty countries worldwide. 

According to this website, the fire danger indicators currently presented in this report are components of the Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index (FWI) System. The Global EWS provides 1-7 day forecasted FWI System data based on the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Global Forecast System. The FWI System components are currently calibrated to commonly used threshold values that identify low to extreme conditions.

This World Health Organization document evaluates the potential of climate-based disease early warning as a means of improving preparedness for, and response to, epidemics. The authors develop a conceptual framework for constructing and evaluating a climate-based early warning system (EWS). The report highlights that many of the most important infectious diseases, and particularly those transmitted by insects, are highly sensitive to climate variations. However, the published literature includes no full descriptions of climate-based EWS being used to influence disease control decisions.