International cooperation to reduce the impact of the El Niņo phenomenon

11.     In parallel with its support for the feasibility study, WMO is acting as the executing agency for an Inter-American Development Bank-funded study on the prediction and amelioration of socio-economic impacts of ENSO in Latin America and the Caribbean. The specific objective of this 21-month project are: (a) to evaluate the existing institutional and technical forecasting capabilities in all countries of the region to anticipate and cope with El Niņo’s consequences; (b) to identify on a geographical basis, by groups of countries, the more vulnerable economic sectors and population groups; (c) to analyse the economic value of improved early warning systems as compared with the existing situation; and (d) to prepare proposals for improved early warning systems in selected countries or groups of countries within the subregions of Meso-America, the Caribbean and South America, to ameliorate the socio-economic impacts of El Niņo. WMO has continued to produce and distribute regular updates on the demise of the El Niņo phase and the onset of the La Niņa phase, in collaboration with the national meteorological services of its Member countries and climate research institutions.

12.     Other agencies have taken initiatives in accordance with their mandates. Building on some of the main conclusions from the Guayaquil seminar, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has formulated a project proposal for the assessment of how early warning and other El Niņo-related information was used at the country and community levels for the mitigation of El Niņo impacts during the 1997/98 event. Supported by the United Nations Fund For International Partnerships, this inter-agency project will be undertaken by core teams in 12 countries,⁵ with the participation of UNEP, WMO, the United Nations University, IDNDR, and the United States National Center for Atmospheric Research. The results are expected to be available in December 2000.

13.     As a spin-off of the participation of the World Health Organization (WHO) in the Inter-Agency Task Force on El Niņo and with inputs from several of its collaborating centres, WHO has prepared a bibliography on the public health hazards associated with the ENSO phenomenon. It will soon be made available on the WHO Web site as a contribution to the work of the Task Force.

14.     The specific El Niņo concerns with regard to natural disaster reduction have been the subject of discussion at various IDNDR conferences, including an international IDNDR early warning conference, held at Potsdam, Germany from 7 to 11 September 1998, an IDNDR- Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific regional conference for Asia, held at Bangkok from 13 to 17 February 1999, and an IDNDR-UNEP regional conference for Africa held at Nairobi from 18 to 21 May 1999. As announced in the Guayaquil Declaration, a further international conference on the 1997/98 ENSO event, hosted by the Government of Peru, will be held at Lima from 20 to 24 September 1999. The conference will focus on institutional arrangements, the role of decision makers and the application of scientific knowledge and technological expertise in El Niņo-related prevention. Another conference, tentatively planned to be held at La Serena, Chile, from 12 to 15 October 1999, will investigate linkages between the El Niņo phenomenon and the process of desertification, with support from the Government of Chile and with the participation of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, particularly in Africa.

15.     As a further follow-up to the Guayaquil seminar, in the segment on oceans and seas of the report on its seventh session, the Commission on Sustainable Development welcomed the intergovernmental expert meeting held at Guayaquil, and the two expert meetings to be held at Lima in September 1999 and at La Serena, Chile, in October 1999. The Commission also, inter alia:

          (a)      Requested the Secretary-General to gather information on all aspects of the impact of ENSO, through national reports on the implementation of Agenda 21, and to provide this information to the Inter-Agency Task Force in order to contribute to the development of the internationally concerted and comprehensive strategy towards the assessment, prevention, mitigation and rehabilitation of the damage caused by ENSO;

          (b)      Decided to consider the impacts of ENSO as part of its examination of the integrated planning and management of land resources at its eighth session;

          (c)      Invited all intergovernmental agencies concerned with aspects of the oceans to consider, within their respective mandates, whether their programmes of work make sufficient allowance for considerations of the potential impact of increased climate variability, and to review through the various coordination arrangements what more needs to be done to ensure adequate understanding of the prediction of coastal and marine impacts of such phenomena as El Niņo.

III. Conclusions and recommendations

16.     The experience with the 1997/98 El Niņo event has reaffirmed the great predictive value of El Niņo signals obtained from the equatorial Pacific. At the same time, however, additional influences exerted by oceanic and atmospheric processes taking place in the Indian and Atlantic Oceans have clearly made predictions much less reliable for certain areas outside the Pacific Ocean basin. It is clear that the precision of future ENSO predictions for such areas will critically depend on the integration of climate oscillations occurring in the Indian and Atlantic Oceans with those from the Pacific Ocean, based on a sound scientific understanding of the interactions between all three. In view of the very serious potential for damage, both in terms of human suffering and economic losses, efforts should be made to intensify and/or extend observations of climate oscillation systems in the three large ocean basins, and to further develop existing ENSO prediction skills, based on improved modelling.