The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and Allianz RE, has launched and handed over to Ghana Meteorological Agency, a flood detection Application (App), Flood Risk App Accra.

The “Developing Risk Management Approaches for Climate and Health Risks” –SAGABI project developed the App in close collaboration with the Ghana Meteorological Agency (GMet) and other stakeholders.

It is meant to help reduce risk and exposure to flooding events and to share weather forecast information within some areas in the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA).

In his welcome address, Head of the SAGABI project, Mathias Range, enumerated some major achievements of the Project, one of which is the App, which will go a long way in minimising the impact of flood within the aforementioned jurisdiction and help city authorities and citizens build their resilience.

Project Manager at Allianz RE, Mariia Skupova, expressed gratitude for the fruitful collaboration among key stakeholders since the inception of the Project, that has culminated into the App being developed.

The Acting Director-General of GMet, Eric Asuman, expressed his appreciation to GIZ and Allianz RE for the intervention.

He stated that it has been GMet’s long-held dream to digitalise their products to make stakeholders have easy access to weather forecast information, especially weather risks.

He said, “the Flood Risk app is an opportunity to make this vision a reality. The App will help us sustainably reach the wider population with rainfall updates from our server in real time.”

Mr Asuman expressed GMet’s willingness to expand the coverage of the App to cover a larger area across Ghana.

In her keynote address, the Deputy Communications Minister, Ama Pomaa Boateng, was pleased that GMet had made efforts to digitalise their operations; an action that aligns with government’s digitalisation agenda. 

Communications Minister mentioned that scientific-based information about flood should be easily accessible and communicated to the public, since high-impact weather events keep increasing, and was happy to note that the Flood Risk App is part of the ways to deal with flooding situations, which often results in the loss of lives and properties.

She expressed her appreciation to GIZ and Allianz for this initiative, while encouraging GMet to double up efforts to engage other partners in digitalizing all other aspects of their operations.

Officially launching the App, Mrs Owusu-Ekuful emphasized the need for a vigorous campaign to get the public to use My Flood Risk Accra app, which can be downloaded from Play Store and App Store.

After the launch, GIZ and Allianz, together with the Minister, officially handed over the App to GMet.

A live demonstration of the Flood App was led by representatives from the Meteorological Agency and participants familiarized themselves with it by scanning the QR codes for Android and Apple phones to download.

It is expected that key stakeholders and the public can navigate the App and encourage others to check their risk levels, while being informed about some preventive, preparedness, responds, recovery, and insurance measures that could minimize the impact of floods.