Ethiopia become a seat of the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) Regional Office for Africa. Previously Burundi was the seat of WMO but due to the internal conflict, the office was transferred to Geneva, Switzerland. The Geneva based office served as specialized UN Organization for meteorology and hydrology for the continents of Africa and Asia. For better management purpose WMO has established six regional offices across the world and each region has its own autonomy to work according to their regional perspectives. Africa’s regional office comprises a chairman and vice chairman, who lead the management group for hydrology, climate services and application compliance issues in marine, aeronautical services, cost recovery and natural risk reduction, among others. Following the decision made by the WMO’s congress to move the regional office to Africa again, six countries including Ethiopia, Egypt, Nigeria, Tunisia and Zimbabwe had shown interest to be a seat of WMO. All the six countries submitted their proposals to compete and at the end Ethiopia emerged the winner as a seat for WMO.“Ethiopia won the competition as a result of its geopolitical advantages that it has over the others,” said Ethiopian Meteorological Agency.
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