Home East Africa Tanzania Sets Up Africa’s First Multi-Hazard Warning System

Tanzania Sets Up Africa’s First Multi-Hazard Warning System

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Working under the authority of the Prime Minister’s Office, the EOCC Situation Room will work to combine real-time data on current and emerging risks with data on past disasters to issue timely forecasts and bulletins. These products, through the coordination and support of the Prime Minister's office, will aim to trigger protective actions that can save lives, protect livelihoods and safeguard economic sectors.

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Working under the authority of the Prime Minister’s Office, the EOCC Situation Room will work to combine real-time data on current and emerging risks with data on past disasters to issue timely forecasts and bulletins. These products, through the coordination and support of the Prime Minister’s office, will aim to trigger protective actions that can save lives, protect livelihoods and safeguard economic sectors.

Tanzania inaugurated its first Emergency Operation and Communication Center (EOCC) Situation Room.  Significantly, it is the first national situation room to be set up under the African Union’s Africa Multi-Hazard Early Warning and Early Action System (AMHEWAS) Programme.

The event marked a milestone in the country’s journey towards building disaster resilience and was welcomed by supporters of the EOCC Situation Room, including the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), which over two years provided technical support for its establishment, in partnership with the CIMA Foundation and with generous funding from the Government of Italy, through the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS).

Working under the authority of the Prime Minister’s Office, the EOCC Situation Room will work to combine real-time data on current and emerging risks with data on past disasters to issue timely forecasts and bulletins. These products, through the coordination and support of the Prime Minister’s office, will aim to trigger protective actions that can save lives, protect livelihoods and safeguard economic sectors.

At the inauguration, UNDRR reconfirmed its commitment to supporting Tanzania fully operationalize the new EOCC Situation Room, in coordination with the UN system and other partners.

As part of this commitment, earlier this week, UNDRR’s Regional Office for Africa facilitated a workshop to train national officials on the use of an open-source system for real-time monitoring and forecasting of natural hazards. This tool will be utilized in the situation room to enable the issuing of advisories and bulletins to trigger early actions.

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Countries with advanced multi-hazard early warning systems have disaster mortality rates that are six times lower than countries with no or weak systems, according to research by UNDRR.