On 24 June, during the 80th session of the Executive Council (EC-80) of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) announced the establishment of the MAZU Scholarship.

This scholarship aims to build a long-term incentive platform for international meteorological cooperation, pool global meteorological talent and project resources and foster an interconnected, collaborative and inclusive global cooperation network. Together with international partners,it will jointly explore optimal approaches for the worldwide rollout and application of the MAZU, China’s solution for Early Warnings for All, thereby advancing global meteorological disaster prevention, mitigation, and sustainable development.

The seed funding for this scholarship comes from a donation by XU Jianmin, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), from the cash award of the IMO Prize he received, amounting to  10,000 Swiss francs (approximately 87,000 RMB).、

The MAZU Scholarship is mainly awarded to Belt and Road meteorological visiting scholars, as well as frontline meteorological and hydrological practitioners in developing countries. It recognizes outstanding professionals who have achieved remarkable results in cross-border meteorological technical exchanges, improvement of global early warning capacity, and the localized rollout and promotion of the MAZU.

China has actively responded to the United Nations Early Warnings for All initiative and launched MAZU last year. To date, this solution has been implemented in seven countries including Pakistan, Ethiopia, the Solomon Islands and Djibouti, and supports cloud-based application in more than 40 countries. The supporting technical training programs have reached nearly 100 developing countries across the globe, with over a thousand frontline meteorological practitioners trained in total. The solution has delivered remarkable results in issuing warnings for sudden meteorological disasters such as heavy rainfall, heatwaves, glacial lake outburst floods, and their secondary hazards.

Author: LIU Shuqiao

Editor: ZHOU Ying