Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre (ADPC), in collaboration with MET-Norway, has been providing technical support to Department of Meteorology and Hydrology (DMH) to enhance its human and technical capacity with the financial support from Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Royal Norwegian Government. Since there is a need of setting up a user-friendly interface for query and access of observed climate data as well as future climate change scenarios of the country, developing a Myanmar Climate Data Portal has been identified as an important activity under this project.

The Climate Portal will be designed for the public to access climatological, meteorological, geographical and projected climate change scenarios on the web. The intended audience is climate research scientists, meteorologists, hydrologists, sector specific planners and policymakers and anyone who needs to understand past and future weather and climate patterns.

ADPC conducted a one-day workshop on the 8th of August in Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar with key stakeholders such as DMH staff, government representatives of agriculture, irrigation, health, environment, forestry, information technology, NGOs and more. The workshop was attended by approximately 30 participants in order to assess user needs for developing the Climate Portal.

The workshop was inaugurated by Ms. Khin Cho Cho Shein, Director of DMH and Dr. Senaka Basnayake, Department Head of Climate Change and Climate Risk Management, ADPC.

Ms. Khin Cho Cho Shein, highlighted the importance of this need assessment workshop;
“We hope this initiative will enhance and strength our climate services at DMH and therefore the effort of ADPC under the Norwegian funded project is very much appreciated”.

She also added; “It is important for us to improve the climate services as there are many requests from climate sensitive sectors in the country”.

Dr. Senaka Basnayake has assured the support of ADPC in successful deployment of the Myanmar Climate Data Portal.