Herders to receive on-demand weather information via SMS

Mercy Corps Mongolia has launched the first short message service (SMS) system in Mongolia that delivers weather forecast information to herders in remote rural areas.

After the successful pilot-testing of the SMS system platform, the National Emergency Management Agency and the Communications Information and Technology Authority signed a memorandum of understanding on October 12 with executives of four mobile service providers in Mongolia - Unitel Group, MobiCom Corporation, Skytel LLC and G-Mobile LLC - to extend the reach of the system.

The SMS system, tested since June 2016, has already reached 57,000 herders, according to Mercy Corps Mongolia. A follow-up survey indicated that 51 percent of the users started using the system as their main source of weather information, 90 percent rated the forecast information as “very accurate”, and 81 percent gave good reviews for the service.

Officials who attended the signing ceremony noted that the memorandum marks a milestone as it enables 160,000 herder households across the 21 provinces of Mongolia to access village-level realtime weather information on their mobile phones. Herders who use the application will be able get weather information, as well as early warning messages by NEMA at any time through on-demand simple text messages, as shared at the ceremony.

Moreover, the system reportedly has the potential to disseminate information on animal disease outbreaks, snow depth, pasture capacity and meat market prices.

During his speech at the signing ceremony, Prime Minister U.Khurelsukh thanked Mercy Corps, NEMA and the four mobile operators for introducing the SMS service, which reaches out to rural communities.