The minister of Environment, Climate Change, Water, Parks and Wildlife, Hon. Pa Ousman Jarju, Tuesday launched phase two of a climate change service strengthening project and early warning system in The Gambia, for climate resilience, and adaptation. The launching was jointly orgnised by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), held at a local hotel in Kololi. The project aims to establish a functional network of meteorological and hydrological monitoring stations to help understand better the weather and climate changes overtime and to also provide timely information to avert any weather and climate change related disasters. Minister Jarju said the project will also develop and disseminate weather and climate information and warnings to the government, private sector and the general public to enable early preparation against disasters; such as floods and other severe weather and agricultural stresses. According to him, this project will enhance the country's capacity to gather and analyse climate and environmental information, thus enhance the climate monitoring and collection of information, strengthening the skills and human resources to operate an adequate early warning system and enhance the effectiveness of the communication of climate information and early warning messages to end users. In this way, he said, it will help enhance resilience and address the problems that limit the achievement of optimum results in the agriculture and related sectors. "As a country, this launching marks a significant milestone in the drive to building resilience and adaptation to climate change and it is expected to contribute to the achievements of The Gambia's development blueprints; such as PAGE and Visions 2020. This project will contribute to this by proffering information to foresee and manage extreme weather events and to mitigate long term impacts of climate change on various sectors of the economy", Minister Jarju elucidated. He pointed out that sub-national systems and communities are highly vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change as they lack the capacity to adapt to climate change, and continue to be affected by weak observational and analytical capability. The minister said The Gambia's efforts and development drive to increase the capacity to assess and respond to climate change impact is highly desirable. Currently, he noted, the national and local administrations have limited systematic knowledge of climate change risk, adaptation needs and options , as well as limited individual, institutional and systemic capacities to act on climate risks. Meanwhile, he also said that climate change impacts and associated rainfall variability have had and could continue to have significant economic costs in The Gambia. Izumi Morota-Alakija, the deputy UNDP resident representative, also affirmed that climate change poses a serious challenge to key national economic sectors; such as agriculture, energy, forestry, tourism and infrastructural development amongst others. "The profound and in most cases irreversible impacts on the continent's economic, social and environmental system is becoming increasingly apparent from the frequency of and intensity in the occurrence of natural imbalances and climate related disasters on the continent. [This] include recurrent droughts, floods, erratic rainfall and other similar extreme weather events that threaten human health and infrastructure, food security, and biological diversity, among others, all of which are key on human survival and economic development," Izumi told the participants. Morota-Alakija said that this second phase of the climate change early warning project of The Gambia would build on the gains of the first phase that was implemented from 2011 to 2014. This project will address the current early warning system related gaps which include, but not limited to inadequate understanding of current and future climate risks, as well as weak monitoring and poor forecasting of climate-related hazards. Nina Raasakka, representative of United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), said that climate change adaptation has long been one of their key priorities, while assuring that they will continue to work in various projects around the world at UNEP. The executive director of National Environment Agency and GEF focal point, Ndey Sireng Bakurin, said that since the establishment of the Global Environment Facility in 1991, it has served as the financial mechanism of the main Multilateral Environment Agreements (MEAs). She added that currently, GEF is the largest public funder worldwide of projects aiming to generate global environmental benefits, while supporting national sustainable development initiatives. She also said that since joining the GEF, the Gambia received GEF grants totaling USD28 million that leveraged USD90 million in co-financing resources for 16 national projects and these include projects in biodiversity, climate change, water, land degradation, energy and chemical management "Similarly, the Gambia participated in 20 regional and global projects financed by the GEF, totaling USD163 million that leveraged USD361 million in co-financing resources. These include six projects in biodiversity, seven in climate change, four in land degradation, and four in international waters, two in persistent organic pollutants and eight in multi-focal areas," she disclosed. For his part, Lamin Mai Touray, project director, stated that the main problem facing the country today, in the context of climate change is a high vulnerability to climate change and climate variability, exacerbated by low capacity to address and adapt to the phenomenon. This low capacity, he said, is evident at all levels; from the local, regional to the national institutional levels.