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| Key figures for the region for 2024 |
| 20 countries assisted in 2024 |
| 1 country affected by conflict: Afghanistan |
| 5 countries with social/ institutional fragility: Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Republic of Marshall Islands, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu |
| 2 regional programmes: South-East Asia (Cambodia and Lao PDR) and Pacific SIDS 2.0 |
| 1 country programme: Afghanistan |
| 3 Accelerated Support Window interventions: Timor-Leste, Tonga and Vanuatu |
| USD 16.08 million programme funding (to 31 December 2024, excluding EW4All and ASW) |
Cambodia: Flooding is one of Cambodia’s most frequent disasters, severely impacting rural livelihoods, infrastructure, and socio-economic development. Population growth, land-use changes, industrialization, and climate change have intensified its frequency and severity. To address these challenges, Community-Based Flood Management support was provided to strengthen local capacity to protect lives, property, and livelihoods from flooding in Cambodia.
Key lessons from the interventions include community engagement in flood risk management, early warning systems, and integrating flood mitigation into development plans. Using the lessons learned from this engagement, the National Committee for Disaster Management Cambodia and Partnership for Development in Kampuchea (PADEK) worked closely with local Disaster Management Committees at the commune, district, and provincial levels to develop the Community-based Flood Management Manual. This manual compiles these insights to guide stakeholders, particularly local authorities and flood-prone communities in Cambodia.
Lao PDR: Fifteen village-level disaster preparedness and response plans were developed in Phongsaly Province, along with two community-based disaster risk management plans in Oudomxay Province. These efforts were complemented by capacity-building training for communities on disaster risk management, including community-level disaster response drills, awareness-raising on disaster risk reduction and risk profiling.
At the national level, a Disaster Risk Reduction Action Plan has been developed to operationalize the National Strategy on Disaster Risk Reduction 2021–2030, which is currently nearing endorsement. Additionally, a disaster risk reduction plan for the natural resources and environment sector has been prepared to support the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment’s five-year development plan, aiming to mainstream disaster risk reduction into sectoral planning.
Afghanistan: Lessons learnt from the flooding in May 2024: On May 10-11, 2024, heavy rainfall led to flash floods in northeastern Afghanistan affecting 21 districts across Baghlan, Badakhshan and Takhar provinces. The rains continued with further torrential downpours on May 16-17, 2024, causing additional flooding in the districts of Ghor, Faryab, Herat and Mazar provinces, with Ghor being the worst affected. The floods resulted in severe loss of life and livelihoods. Initial estimates from the World Food Programme were that nearly 1,000 people had died or were injured, more than 5,000 houses were fully or partially damaged and thousands of livestock perished.
The devasting impacts of the events underscored the importance of Afghanistan’s flood early warning system, which is supported by the Flash Flood Guidance System (FFGS) and highlighted critical needs in ensuring last-mile connectivity to effectively translate forecasting outputs into actions that save lives and protect livelihoods.
Effectiveness of Forecasting & Dissemination: The Afghanistan Meteorological Department issued early warnings for heavy rainfall and potential flash floods 12 hours before the event. These alerts were disseminated through WhatsApp groups, emails and social media, reaching key stakeholders, including the Afghanistan National Disaster Management Authority and local authorities.
The FFGS, supported by WMO, combined with global models and satellite-based monitoring, successfully identified high-risk areas. The initial technical evaluation of the FFGS highlights several key areas for further improvement, including the integration of high-resolution input data, risk and warning products and development of capacity to provide impact-based forecasting. Furthermore, despite timely warnings, many communities did not receive actionable information in time, particularly those in remote rural areas.
Community Trust and Challenges: As part of the CREWS Afghanistan Programme, preliminary results from a post-event survey in Baghlan and Ghor provinces (conducted by the World Bank in collaboration with the World Food Programme) revealed that fewer than one-third of flood-affected households had received any form of early warning. In addition, the data showed that most warnings came through informal sources such as family members, community leaders, and religious figures. Moreover, the warnings lacked actionable guidance. Among those who did receive a warning, over half reported receiving it less than six hours before the flood, which was insufficient to support timely disaster response. In contrast, more than half of affected households indicated that they would need at least 24 hours’ notice to take meaningful action. Female participants emphasized that limited access to early warning information, restricted mobility and inadequate awareness of emergency response training have significantly hindered their ability to engage in flood preparedness and response efforts. These insights will be instrumental in informing the design and strengthening of Afghanistan’s early warning systems to ensure they are more inclusive and effective.
A resident from Baghlan province, who lost his home in the floods, shared:
“We heard from neighbours that rain was coming, but we had no way to know it would be this bad. If we had received a direct warning on our phones or the mosque loudspeakers, maybe we could have saved more of our belongings and helped others escape in time.“
Additionally, the absence of localized flood models and real-time data transmission delays limited the precision of warnings. In some cases, flood-prone areas did not receive targeted alerts, underscoring the need for improved forecasting resolution and community-based dissemination channels.
Next Steps: Lessons from this event are shaping Afghanistan’s Hydromet Roadmap 2.0, including the development of an Afghanistan’s Drought Decision Support Platform and enhancements to multi-hazard early warning dissemination.
By bridging these gaps, Afghanistan can strengthen its resilience against future extreme weather events, ensuring that early warnings save more lives and livelihoods.
Programme in Focus: Pacific SIDS
| Focus on the core Indicators |
| 4 LDCs/ SIDS with national investments plans and budgets for MHEWS |
| 9 national plans, strategies and legislations on early warnings approved and/ or implemented |
| 5 multi-hazard assessments, analyses, and other mapping of needs, gaps and priorities that inform investment requirements on early warning |
| 5 hazards which pose a risk of life and economic loss for which forecasting and warning services are in place |
| 3 climate and weather information products co-designed with users’ needs |
Countries: Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Republic of Marshall Islands (RMI), Palau, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Samoa
Strengthening the skills of women leaders
The Women in Leadership in Meteorology and Hydrology Workshop 2.0 (WILS 2.0) in Port Vila, Vanuatu, in September 2024, brought together 37 female leaders from across the Pacific region. The workshop aimed to strengthen leadership skills, enhance collaboration and promote continuous learning. Women in Leadership was established to address the under-representation of women in leadership roles in the meteorological and hydrological sectors, particularly within the Pacific region. It fosters an environment for women to build confidence to contribute to decision-making, disaster risk management and climate resilience efforts. In addition, Women in Leadership offers mentorship opportunities to young female scientists. The workshops also supported the participation of women leaders in decision-making spaces such as the Pacific Meteorological Council Meeting, which took place just a few days later.
Implementing Impact-based Forecasting in the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu
WMO implemented two impact-based forecasting workshops during the implementation of the CREWS Pacific SIDS 2.0 programme, in the Solomon Islands in 2023, and in Vanuatu in 2024. The purpose of the workshops was to provide a forum for training participants on impact-based forecasting and to develop tools and mechanisms for operationalizing impact-based forecasting and warning systems in both countries. The workshops brought together stakeholders from across civil society, including representatives from the outer islands, reinforcing their crucial role in the development of impact-based forecasts. South-south cooperation was key in the delivery of both workshops. In the Solomon Islands, an expert from the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration shared experiences on how the impacts of typhoons in the Philippines inspired a new way of communicating warning messages by including likely impacts.
One year later, in Vanuatu, experts from the recently trained Solomon Islands Meteorological Service contributed to the facilitation of the workshop sharing their experience in kickstarting the implementation of impact-based forecasting. In Solomon Islands, 57 participants from 27 stakeholder organizations were trained, and in Vanuatu there were 37 participants from 7 stakeholder organizations.
Developing a guidance to support Early Warning and Early Action
Under the CREWS Pacific SIDS 2.0 programme, an inclusive early warning early action checklist and implementation guide was developed. The checklist and implementation guide have been developed to ensure that the key elements of early warning systems (governance; disaster risk knowledge; detection, monitoring, analysis, and forecasting; dissemination and communication; and preparedness to respond) are gender-responsive and disability-inclusive. They provide support and direction for systematically integrating and monitoring gender and disability inclusivity across all actions related to warnings. Whilst developed for the Pacific SIDS, the checklist can be adapted or contextualised as needed to different countries.
Taking a strategic approach to development capabilities
Under CREWS Pacific SIDS 2.0, National Strategic Plans for Meteorology and National Frameworks for Weather, Water, Climate and Ocean Services were developed for Tokelau (2021), Tonga (2021), Solomon Islands (2022) and Vanuatu (2023). A National Strategic Plan for Meteorology provides a structured approach to strengthening a country’s meteorological capabilities, ensuring accurate weather forecasting, disaster risk reduction, and climate resilience. It aligns national policies with international standards, enhances observational networks, and promotes research and capacity building. Similarly, the Global Framework for Climate Services ensures the effective delivery of climate information to support decision-making across sectors such as agriculture, health, water management, and disaster preparedness. It fosters collaboration among stakeholders, improves access to climate data, and enhances adaptation strategies to mitigate climate change impacts, ultimately safeguarding lives, livelihoods, and economic stability.
Partnering with youth groups to deliver Community-based Early Warning Systems in Niue
Support was provided to the Niue Meteorological Service to implement a traditional knowledge-based training on drought. This initiative involved cultivating yams, a common crop, to monitor and better predict cyclones during El Niño years. The activity was carried out in partnership with the Girls and Boys Brigade of Niue, a leading youth community group. Over the past three years, the brigade has planted yams to observe their responses to cyclones throughout each cyclone season. From 2021 to 2023, the El Niño Southern Oscillation status was La Niña, but with the shift to El Niño in 2024, it became crucial to compare the differences between these two phases and enhance forecasting capacity for tropical cyclones in the 2023-2024 season. The results helped Niue Meteorological Service to improve early warning and early action efforts. This initiative also provided an opportunity to raise awareness about drought, its definition and its impacts while promoting traditional knowledge passed down through generations in Niue.
Coordinating and collaborating across the sectors
The Pacific National Meteorological and Hydrological Services and the National Disaster Management Offices identified coordination as a challenge as the two entities often operated in silos during disaster preparedness and response. The lack of coordination and collaboration has lead to limited data sharing, delayed early warnings and ineffective response. To address this gap, WMO and UNDRR invested in strengthening coordination and collaboration between the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services and the National Disaster Management Offices by bringing them together for planning and implementation of early warning system activities at the national level under the CREWS Initiative. For instance, the CREWS Project Steering Committee meetings played a crucial role in fostering collaboration between the two entities through joint planning, information sharing, discussion and validation of national needs, gaps and priorities across the four pillars of multi-hazard early warning systems. Furthermore, these meetings also facilitated targeted discussions on gender and disability inclusivity to ensure that early warning systems are people-centred, gender-responsive and disability-inclusive and tailored to the specific needs of various groups.