The Small Earth Nepal (SEN) successfully concluded consultation workshops with the local stakeholders of Guthichaur Rural Municipality, Jumla, Ward 5 on 28 July 2024, and Rajapur Municipality, Bardiya, Ward no. 4 on the 31st July 2024, under the project “Improving the Climate Services for Adaptation through Customized and Specific Location Weather Forecasts,” supported by USAID Biodiversity (Jal Jungal) through DAI Global LLC. The main objective of this project is to provide access and user friendly weather forecast information to the local community of these two specific locations using the sources of the Data, Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) from the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology( DHM) and High Impact Weather Assessment Toolkit from International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD).
The objective of this consultation workshop was to identify the relevant weather parameters as per the needs of the local communities, especially smallholder farmers, and to prioritize them for the location-based weather information services.
The workshop was attended by a total of 21 participants (M 17; F 4) in Bardiya and 44 participants (M 17; F 28) in Jumla, including representatives from the local government and ward offices, NGO and community-based organizations, media, teachers,and local community members. In both the workshops, Dr. Dhiraj Pradhananga (President, SEN & Associate Professor, Tribhuvan University) delivered a presentation on weather and climate services and products and their usability followed by group work using questionnaires and checklists. Both the workshops were successful in discussing with the local stakeholders, prioritizing weather parameters and identifying the type of weather forecast information they need. Based on this information the project team will use available forecast products, customize them and disseminate to the target communities and stakeholders in project pilot sites as above.
