Issue 4: October 2000

Report on El Niño: Fix the
roof while the sun shines

NASA satellite photo of the 1997 El Niño  shows the large warm water mass off  the west coast of the Americas

UNU is among a group of UN agencies that, together with the US-based National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), will release a new report this month that spells out lessons drawn from 16 countries during the “El Niño of the Century” in 1997-98.

The study looked at experiences in 16 countries -- Cuba, Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador, Peru, Paraguay, Mozambique, Kenya, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, China, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Fiji – and warns that thousands of deaths and tens of billions of dollars in economic damage will continue to befall the world’s developing countries every two to seven years until an investment is made to improve forecasting and preparedness against El Niño.

Financed by the United Nations Fund for International Partnerships, the study is scheduled for release in Washington DC Oct. 26 and will be online at http://www.esig.ucar.edu/un/. For more information contact Zafir Adeel.

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Revised: February 22, 2001