Indonesia-Slovakia Agree on Meteorological, Disaster Mitigation Cooperation

TheIndonesia.id - Indonesian Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) and Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute (SHMU) have agreed on a bilateral cooperation on meteorological research and technology that will help disaster mitigation effort in Indonesia.

The signing of the agreement was facilitated by Indonesian Embassy in Bratislava that also held a hybrid ceremonial event of document exchange.

Head of BMKG Dwikorita Karnawati said the cooperation is of high importance since the majority of national disasters in Indonesia are related to hydrometeorology. This makes information and knowledge sharing an urgent matter.

“Almost 95 percent national disasters in Indonesia are related to hydrometeorology. Therefore, efforts to improve institutions’ capacity, including our human resources and infrastructures, need to be done, especially in the future where climate change will create even more uncertainties,” Karnawati said in a statement on Thursday, March 24.

Furthermore, she said the memorandum of understanding (MoU) will regulate capacity enhancement initiative between BMKG and SHMU in order to manage climate and meteorological information and early warning systems that’s more reliable and accurate.

Director general of SHMU Matrin Benko also emphasized the importance of early warning system in a disaster mitigation and reiterated that collaboration between institutions is the only way forward.

“In accordance with the theme announced by the World Meteorological Organization for 2022, early warning system is the key to success in disaster mitigation effort. Therefore, every meteorological institution has to continue improving its service capacity to answer climate change challenges, including through scientific cooperation with other meteorological institution,” Benko explained.

In the future, Indonesian Ambassador to Slovakia Pribadi Sutiono said the MoU is expected to be the legal basis for future cooperation and agreement between institutions from the two countries on various sectors related to meteorology, especially on infrastructural development.