Through the OFDA Project, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) assisted in building capacity of the Namibia Meteorological Services (NMS) with the installation of an automatic weather station (AWS) in Okangwati, Kunene Region. The AWS was unveiled on Friday, March 04^th 2016, by Honourable James Sankwasa, Deputy Minister – Ministry of Works and Transport, on behalf of his Minister Alpheus !Naruseb.

Sankwasa showed his appreciation towards the FAO for assisting with installing the AWS and for being so generous and committed to help the government in realizing its development targets. In his speech, he used the phrase “State-of-the-art” equipment referring to the AWS as it is designed to feed NMS Head Office with weather data and general weather conditions in that area every five minutes. The Hon. Deputy Minister highlighted that: “A number of weather parameters are crucial to agriculture in that various management decisions and techniques on animal and crop production depend upon weather information. In the case of livestock production and agro-pastoral systems, various weather parameters such as rainfall and temperature have direct and indirect bearing on livestock productivity. For example, rainfall information is crucial to grazing management decisions owing to the high positive correlation between rainfall and rangeland condition”.

At the same occasion, in a speech read on behalf of the Governor for Kunene Region by his advisor, Honourable Katuutire Kaura, the Governor said Kunene Region struggle to cope with the prolonged drought spanning from 2012 up until this very moment. “Despite our weakened ability to absorb such natural shocks, we believe that this was in part, due to the fact that our people had limited access to reliable weather related information. As a result, they could not prepare well in advance for these recurrent droughts”. Furthermore, the Governor pointed out that: “It is very painful indeed to have seen record livestock losses over the past 4-5 years, and for us, being “cattle people” our support system has been eroded to such an extent that some households have basically nothing… (and I mean nothing) to rely on”. The speech went on and said: “I, therefore, believe that with the inauguration of this AWS (and hopefully with more to be installed in other remote areas of our region), our early warning systems would be improved while the generation and dissemination of weather related information (translated in local languages) in form of monthly or quarterly weather bulletins will become possible.