Country-level heat and health assessment of four SA countries launched

By TRN Online, Kathmandu, Oct. 8: Country-level heat and health assessment of four South Asian countries including Nepal has been launched today highlighting how the countries are joining forces to meet challenges of rising heat, in context particularly of El Niño.

The country brief launched today at the Global Heat Forum being held in Bangkok map how these countries are facing and preparing for extreme heat, and where the gaps remain, read the press release issued by the organisers of the Forum including Global Heat Health Information Network (GHHIN).

The following is a part of the press release:

With an unprecedented El Niño strengthening across the Pacific and raising the risk of another severe heat season across South Asia, India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan are moving to meet its impacts together. Four new country briefs launched today at the Global Heat Forum map how these countries are facing and preparing for extreme heat, and where the gaps remain.

They are the first assessments from the South Asia Hub of the Global Heat Health Information Network (GHHIN), hosted in New Delhi by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), with partners Sustainable Futures Collaborative (SFC), Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the BRAC James P. Grant School of Public Health (BRAC JPGSPH), and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), and in step with the WHO-WMO Climate and Health Joint Programme.

Across the four countries, the assessments find real momentum. The region's defences are advancing fastest on planning and policy through heat action plans and forecasting and early warning, while the systems that turn these into on-the-ground action and protection - health surveillance, funded local action, and heat built into health, labour and urban planning - now need to catch up. Even as some countries begin to close that gap at scale, efforts remain uneven.