Following a year of extreme weather, including a very severe winter followed by a drought, not to mention some severe flash flooding incidents, Mongolia’s herders have suffered severely. The Mongolian National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), is keen to find ways of being able to alert herders in advance of weather events, such as snowstorms, in order to keep them, their families and livestock safe and limit any damage. Together with Mercy Corps, a US international humanitarian aid agency with extensive experience in helping in disaster environments, NEMA  has released an SMS application for herders which provides advance weather information.

On 12 January, Mercy Corps Mongolia Country Director Ramesh Singh handed over the Advanced Weather Information System (AWI) to NEMA chief Major-General T.Badral,. Mercy Corps Mongolia, has been collaborating with NEMA in implementing a project called ‘Leveraging tradition and science in disaster risk reduction in Mongolia-2’ since 2016.

Within the project, the Advanced Weather Information System (AWI) was established in cooperation with mobile operator companies. In June 2016, a total of 57 herders began participating in testing the application; 51 percent of them receiving direct forecast information. More than 90 percent ranked the SMS application as being effective.