Outreach and awareness raising

This pilar is to ensure that adequate awareness and outreach activities are undertaken to better engage policymakers, administrators, entrepreneurs, scientists and civil society at all levels in using EO and geospatial data and information.

This includes the adoption of awareness-raising strategies and practices in development and provision of GMES and Africa services, strengthening awareness of the private sector and civil society on opportunities provided by Earth Observation data and technologies, and establishing an African portal cataloging EO information available to AU Member States.

Two main activities are foreseen:

i) Strengthen awareness and outreach of Earth Observation among stakeholders including the private sector, policymakers and the general public.

As stated in the pilar 1, AUC brings regional and continental stakeholders (e.g. policymakers, private sector, civil society etc.) together (through 2 continental forums, 2 service workshops and 1 joint workshop and 5 regional stakeholders workshops ) to foster dialogue and networking with the expected result of uptake of GMES & Africa services. The costs of the workshops are covered by AUC, except for the cost related to RICs participation. The RICs cover their costs from the Grants.
This activity contributes to strengthening the private sector’s knowledge by providing them with state-of-the-art EO information applied to sustainable development, exposing them to potential clients and partners. In return, the private sector’s engagement and commitment adds value to GMES & Africa results. The Action includes outreach activities to various stakeholders (private sector, academia, non-governmental organizations, national institutions, etc.) with a view to building long term engagement in EO activities in the continent. The expected impacts of this activity include involving the private sector as service providers in the development of the GMES & Africa Services and fostering the potential of “start-ups” in the dissemination of EO information. AUC takes the opportunity to map the current and potential end-users, building upon other existing mapping exercises (such as the joint AARSE and EARSC study on African EO companies).  

AUC also regularly presents G&A status and outcomes to continental Forum or Conference in the area of Earth Observation (AARSE, EUMETSAT User Forum, etc) and in the applications area (marine, food security, agriculture, etc), in order to sensitize policymakers in the usage of EO derived services in support to their policy domain area.

ii) Traditional and Social media in support of GMES & Africa

AUC produces awareness and outreach materials and uses the traditional and social media channels and technologies (eg. brand publicity products, broadcast and print media, continental bulletins, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) to reach out to the public. AUC does it through its internal publicity and communication strategy implementation as well as through procurement. The impacts are to improve outreach at national level (the directorates in charge of planning), at state level (governors, ministers, members of parliament etc.), regional level (regional and inter-governmental organizations and institutions etc.), at the continental level (UNECA, UNEP, Specialized Technical Committees, etc.) including towards the private sector and the civil society.