Colombia: institutional cooperation in the field of meteorology COFIMET The Institute of Meteorology Hydrology and Envionment is a public establishment within the Ministry of Environment Housing and Territorial Development. Its key mission is to provide technical and scientific support to the National Environmental System (SIN
A) of Colombia which comprises the Ministry of Environment and other environmental regional and local authorities. One of the key tasks of IDEAM is to inform the government and general public of the likely risks of natural disasters and issuing alerts and 
warnings on severe weather. This task is of growing importance as the societies have become more vulnerable to the effects of the climate change due to extreme weather phenomena in Colombia and in the Andean Region.The overall objective of the ICI-project 
is to reduce risk for the loss of human life and property caused by hazardous weather and changing climate in the Colombian society. The project purpose is to improve readiness and capacity at IDEAM to manage and produce safety servies on extreme natural p
henomena for the Colombian society. The cooperation focuses on training and demonstration on observation networks weather radar product development and customer oriented services which will be reflected in the development planning of IDEAM.The implementing
 organisations are Finnish meteorological Institute and IDEAM. Project duration is two years 2012-2013 and budget 250 000 Euros.