Yemen Climate Water Information Management & Early Warning Systems (CWIMEWS)

Water-scarce Yemen faces more frequent flash floods, droughts, extreme heat and coastal cyclones. Years of conflict have left the country largely unable to anticipate them: over 70 per cent of hydrometeorological stations do not work, and warnings seldom reach rural and displaced communities. Shocks are met with humanitarian aid after they occur.

The project will restore and modernise climate and water monitoring in nine priority basins. It will recover historical data, rehabilitate solar-powered monitoring stations with real-time telemetry, and bring all data into one national information system. Forecasting models for floods, drought, extreme heat and groundwater depletion will feed a national multi-hazard early warning system linked to governorate operation rooms. Warnings will reach women, displaced people and remote communities by SMS, radio, sirens and mosque loudspeakers.

As the first GCF project in Yemen, it brings early warning to a fragile, conflict-affected setting. It adds a multi-hazard early warning dimension to the World Bank's water management and irrigation project in Yemen and covers the full chain from monitoring to community preparedness. The Ministry of Water and Environment will take over the system through a phased handover.