Article
Jeanne Roberts, writing for Inside Climate News, describes the Weather Info for All Initiative, which aims to install up to 5,000 automatic weather stations at mobile network sites across Africa. A joint effort of the World Meteorological Organization, the Global Humanitarian Forum and Columbia University’s Earth Institute, supported by Ericsson and Zain, it would send site-specific forecasts and early warnings to farmers, fishers and livestock keepers, probably by text message. The article notes that older rural users can be uncomfortable with texting, and that a free SMS agronomy service reached only around 30 percent uptake, but points to fast-rising phone ownership across the continent.