Flooding is an annual occurence for the communities of the Lower Ouémé Valley in Benin. In order to strengthen the populations in their state of alert, the government of Benin has, already since 2014, started to develop a national Early Warning System (EWS) with 21 communes identified as being at risk of flooding. In order to strengthen the populations in their state of alert and the system itself, the PSL Eau project has committed to setting up a Community EWS (SAPC) connected to the national EWS, in 33 villages and neighborhoods in the communes of Zè, Sô Ava, Abomey-Calavi and Sèmè-Podji. The system is then connected to the national EWS, so that the flow of information from the bottom to the top and vice versa has an effect on alert and timely action.

As the 3-year project now comes to an end, one of the biggest and innovative results of the PSL Eau project, is undoubtedly the introduction of a Community Early Warning System for flooding, through colored beacons, and a linked mobile application allowing people to send in and share early warnings. A total of 128.867 people have successfully been reached by the Community EWS initiative during the project, and the number of people expressing knowledge of EWS peaks at over 60% in 2021, compared to 6.5% in 2019 at the start of the project.

In order to share our experience with this innovative tool, a capitalisation factsheet has been created, which can be found here (in French) and here (in English). You can also find here the map of all our pilot sites and approaches.