The Early Warnings for All Accelerator for LDCs and SIDS project targets seven countries: Comoros, Kiribati,  Madagascar, Mauritius, Nepal, Solomon Islands and Tonga. Economic and social life in these countries is intricately linked to climate and the natural environment, making them more vulnerable to climate variations and change. While the scale of disaster and climate impacts vary from country to country, the vulnerabilities in these countries stem from common factors: topography and complex geographies; reliance on climate-sensitive economic activities; water dependency; high debt burdens; and climate variability and emerging risks. The countries suffer from a combined average annual loss to disasters of over US$ 300 million.

Climate extremes are placing growing pressure on water resources, food security, and livelihoods in many developing countries. The 79 Members of the Organization of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) are among the most vulnerable, yet Member States of the OACPS have contributed least to greenhouse gas emissions.The EU-funded Intra-ACP Climate Services and Related Applications Programme (ClimSA) was established to address these challenges by enhancing the climate services value chain across the African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) regions.  ClimSA has brought together eight Regional Climate Centres (RCCs), ten National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) from focus countries, the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC), EUMETSAT, the African Union Commission (AUC), and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to strengthen climate prediction, data management, and the delivery of actionable climate services.By enhancing the production, translation, and uptake of climate information, the Programme contributes directly to informed decision-making, resilience building, and sustainable development in climate-sensitive sectors. ClimSA supports these efforts through technical assistance, financial support, as well as infrastructure and capacity development.As main users of climate services and the bridge to other final users, the African Regional Economic Communities (RECs), the African Union Commission (AUC), the Caribbean Meteorological Organization (CMO) , and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) are the focus of the programme to ensure sustainability and utilization of climate services.  

Flash floods are among the world’s deadliest natural disasters with more than 5 000 lives lost annually. Their social, economic and environmental impacts are significant. Accounting for approximately 85% of flooding cases, flash floods also have the highest mortality rate among different classes of flooding, including riverine and coastal. Flash floods differ from river floods in their short time scales and occurrence on small spatial scales, which makes flash flood forecasting a different challenge from large-river flood forecasting. In flash floods forecasting, we are concerned mostly with the forecast of occurrence, and focus on two causative events: 1) intense rainfall; and 2) rainfall on saturated soils. Flash floods occur throughout the world, and the development times vary across regions from minutes to several hours depending on the land surface, geomorphological and hydrometeorological characteristics of the region. However, for the majority of these areas, there exists no formal process or capacity for developing flash flood warnings.