KINGSTON, Jamaica – Assistant Secretary-General at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Dr Wenjian Zhang, says the key messages from the WMO Regional Association IV Conference held in Kingston, he will be taking back to Geneva, Switzerland, is that the region is has a “strong collaborative spirit.”

“The first message I will carry back to Geneva is [that] this region has a very high, very strong collaborative spirit. They want to share and work together. They want to really become a regional family and make sure that this collaboration leads to ‘one plus one [being] much larger than two’,” Dr Zhang said.

A similar note was made of regional partner entities that have shown keen interest in supporting the plans of Regional Association IV.

The second message is for WMO Secretariat staff of other Regional Associations, he noted.

“Go to the regions. If you do not go, you will never know or have the chance to listen to them, understand their major concerns, challenges and also their resources. That is a great learning curve for our Secretariat teams, but I say talk to them. We must be very seriously committed to supporting the regions,” Dr Zhang urged.

Finally, the Assistant Secretary-General’s third key message is the urgent need for action.

“We heard the lessons, but that is not enough. We must take action after we go back and real action to make sure we can help, including talking about the strategic issues of the Regional Association. It is a new future working structure, because the world is changing very fast and we must be climate-ready,” he shared.

The conference was held from February 6 to 9 at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston, under the theme ‘Increasing weather, water and climate resilience in North America, Central America and the Caribbean’.

Dr Zhang praised the conference as being “comprehensive and inclusive”, tackling weather, climate and water issues in the region.

He said that the WMO supports the social and economic benefits the meteorological service has in countries of the region, in economic growth and job opportunities, and encouraged members to continue the collaboration.

“We have to work together, and if we work together we will see great cost-effectiveness, greater benefit and greater development. We are facing more challenges and more complicated weather, climate and water scenarios,” Dr Zhang argued.

“The best way is for us to work together. If we meet more frequently, find the best opportunities to collaborate, strengthen our relationship with our development partners and leverage support of Headquarters and the Secretariat, I do believe we will be leading in our development, in early warnings for all and in other initiatives,” he added.

Dr Zhang took part in the four-day regional conference, which brought together the North and Central American and Caribbean members of Regional Association IV, with regional and international representatives of the WMO and development partners.