The Action (II)

Sustainable management of natural resources and climate change are at the heart of the UN 2030 agenda for sustainable development, the Paris Agreement, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and Agenda 2063. By contributing to sustainable management of water and natural resources and of marine and coastal areas, the action will contribute to SDGs 14 and 15 and also SDG 13. The action is also contributing to SDG 5 and 16. The action is in line with the external dimension of the Green Deal and Digital and Data Technologies priorities of the European Commission. Space science and technology applied to Earth Observation are crucial in supporting proper management of natural resources and global efforts in tackling climate change challenges.

Intervention logic

The intervention logic of GMES & Africa 2 will build on achieved results and lessons learnt of GMES & Africa-1 in order to capitalise on previous successes and positive experiences of the project. This will allow to promote an evolution towards an increased impact on decision making processes benefiting to the end users at all levels, i.e., Regional Economic Communities (RECs), line Ministries in African countries, scientific communities and African citizens. This action will be implemented in a COVID-19 context and adapted as necessary for a successful completion. This guiding principle will be applied during the whole project implementation.

The intervention logic is built on two main pillars and by three cross-cutting axes of intervention (Fig 1). The two main pillars are: (i) Policy and institutional framework; and (ii) Earth Observation data access and information services:

• Through an improved policy and institutional framework for sustainable management of natural resources and climate change based on Space Science and Technology, relevant African institutions will be in a better position to use the opportunities provided by EO data and geospatial information to improve their decision-making processes (output 1).
• Improving and consolidating access to EO data and information products (output 2) is therefore key to develop and use operational information services for relevant policy makers and practitioners (output 3). The information services aim to cover the entire supply chain for 2 services on 1) Water & Natural Resources (e.g., land use, wetlands, land, forest resources, etc.) and 2) Marine & Coastal areas (e.g., coastal area monitoring, ship traffic and pollution monitoring, etc.) from access to information, generation and provision of services, and engagement and capacity of users to ensure utilisation of these services. Better access to information and availability of specific tools in these areas will also contribute to improve adaptation to climate change and to reduce disaster risk. These two services will have different components, which cover several themes (figures 2 and 3) and 23 applications.

Fig1

Fig 2

Fig 3

These two pillars will be complemented by three cross-cutting axes of intervention: (iii) Capacity building; (iv) Knowledge management and (v) Outreach, uptake and dissemination:

• Assuming that African institutions and that the private sector remain committed to promote and use EO-based services, the action will develop a specific training strategy to address key issues such as new emerging technologies, digital tools, etc. (output 4).
• Building on key achievements of GMES-1 will be crucial, in particular, to manage efficiently all the knowledge developed in previous actions and in during this action. Indeed, this current action of the GMES & Africa 2 will fill the gap of knowledge management identified in the phase 1 through its mid-term review. It is foreseen for example to develop communities of practice to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and to foster inter-regional cooperation among beneficiaries, assuming that relevant stakeholders will cooperate to share information, data and knowledge (output 5).
• Finally, enhancing outreach, uptake and dissemination will allow to promote GMES services in policy and decision-making processes through further engagement with national, regional and continental institutions. In addition, it will also allow to encourage innovative downstream services through engagement with the private sector (output 6).

Geographical coverage of the Action

GMES & Africa covers the entire African continent targeting continental and/or regional priorities. This will facilitate the ‘continentalization’ of GMES & Africa Services, thereby enabling equal distribution of resources and strengthening of EO capacity and collaboration across the entire continent.