How does a combination of an ordinary radio, digital radio, Internet and short-range community radio transmitters become a powerful tool for broadcasting information to any point on the African continent? How is it that you can download a climate web page on a computer without a classical Internet connectivity?
In a new drive to transmit vital weather and climate information to rural communities the Africa, the African Centre of Meteorological Applications for Development (ACMAD) in Niamey, Niger, developed a cost effective mechanism that exploits Internet, the WorldSpace multimedia system, solar powered radio transmitters and wind-up radios with a potential for reaching people, literally, anywhere in Africa even the remotest place one can imagine. The RAdio InterNET (RANET) project, as it is called, may well be the answer to the question of getting vital weather and climate predictions to people in Africa at grassroots level to enable them mitigate the effects of extreme events.
It may be noted that in the recent years, the frequency of occurrence and severity of extreme climate events have increased on the continent. For example, the El Nino related flooding of 1997 to 1998 affected the Greater Horn of Africa Region severely. Thousands of people lost their lives, tens of thousands of livestock and hundreds of thousands of hectares of farmland were destroyed. Diseases believed to have been eradicated such as Rift Valley fever re-emerged. The loss of lives and livelihoods was catastrophic. Damage to roads in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania was in the order of 13,000km and required US $4.6 billion to repair. In 1999/2000 period the La Nina related drought dealt a devastating blow to the same region, which resulted in famine and loss of livestock unequaled in recent times.
In view of these and other similar occurrences, weather and climate information has become a sought-after commodity by ordinary citizens and policy makers alike. The RANET project is designed to meet the demand for development of value-added climate products and dissemination needs to rural communities.

RANET is at a pilot stage in six countries namely, Niger, Senegal, Mozambique, Chad, Zambia and Kenya. Even so, Uganda, which is not among the six pilot countries, has advanced very well in its implementation.  The project is coordinated from ACMAD and is supported in various ways by USAID, NOAA-OGP, WMO, CIMMS, University of Oklahoma, UK-Met Office, WorldSpace Foundation etc. The Kenya Meteorological Department has also committed resources to the RANET-Kenya project.
 
The RANET –Kenya Project

The challenge for RANET-Kenya is to develop appropriate weather an climate products that can be used at rural level. These consist of climate predictions with expert advisories on agriculture, pastoralism and health.

When people are provided with climate predictions with adequate lead-time, they find solutions that mitigate effects of extreme weather and climate events. For example, solutions may include planting fast maturing varieties of crops suitable for drier-than-normal conditions when such conditions are predicted. Other applications may include selling off of some animals prior to predicted drought conditions thus reducing the number of animals likely to die from drought.

Other applications include advice to communities on proper land use and construction practices to prevent landslides that occur during heavy storms. In May 2002, for example, about 15 people died in different locations of Kenya when their houses, which were constructed on steep inclines were buried in landslides.

Organizational Structure of RANET-Kenya.

A small team of Meteorologists of the Kenya Meteorological Department headed by a coordinator steers the activities of the project. It initiates partnership with specialized organizations that add expert advisory information to climate outlooks and outlook updates. These are organizations such as the Ministry of Agriculture and rural Development, Ministry of Livestock, Office of the president, Disaster Management Committee, Kenya Agricultural research Institute (KARI) and many others. This constitutes the Multidisciplinary Team that develops the content of the products.

Another important form of partnership is with Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) that are already on the ground working on developmental projects with rural communities. Such organizations would have extension services in place and their function is to disseminate the RANET content to the communities. They purchase the necessary RANET equipment, which consist of at least WorldSpace receivers or WorldSpace PCI cards, PC Adaptor Cards and connect them to their computers.

Equipment

Integrated in RANET is the capability of transmitting and receiving information in form of text, graphics, video and audio (in form of websites) using the African Learning Channel reserved and donated by the WorldSpace Foundation for the purpose of transmitting public-good information. Websites are uploaded to the WorldSpace “Afristar” satellite from where they are beamed to the whole of Africa and some parts of Europe. Reception is through WorldSpace digital radio receivers. The advantage of using RANET is that, with just a modest investment of a personal computer or laptop, a WorldSpace radio receiver (or WorldSpace PCI computer card) an individual or organization can receive websites anywhere in Africa without the necessity of ordinary Internet connectivity.

Another major component that enables us to reach the community at household level is the inclusion of rural community radios. These comprise rural radio stations that transmit to a radius of 25 kilometres.  Three radio transmitters are in the country and modalities are being worked out for their installation in selected areas.

The beneficially communities will also receive wind-up radios. These are ordinary radios with extraordinary capacity of running on power generated by an inbuilt wind-up system. An inbuilt solar power generator augments this power source. These radios therefore do not need main-grid power connection or batteries to run. They run without any cost to the user.

As we build partnership with specialized organizations and Non-governmental Organizations the RANET network expands and the dream of getting vital weather and climate information to rural communities gradually turns to reality.