GMES & Africa discusses usage and applications of Copernicus Data
Hailu Wudineh
19 February 2018
Experts from Africa and Europe discusses how the Global Monitoring of Environment and Security & Africa Support Programme can adapt and use Earth Observation data from Sentinel satellites.

The discussion is going on in a workshop organized by the Copernicus and the GMES & Africa programme for the upcoming three consecutive days (19-21 February 2018) in Accra, Ghana.

GMES &Africa Support Programme is the African Union Commission’s Earth Observation flagship programme and the key component of the EU-AU Partnership (Lisbon, 2007) in the space sector. The workshop exchanges views regarding the implementation and adaptation of the COPERNICUS programme in Africa through the development of the African EO services and applications tailored to African needs at continental, regional and local level.

The active collaboration between the two programmes is an essential element of the EU-AU Partnership. The meeting brought together experts from GMES & Africa Support Programme management, GMES & Africa Consortia and European and COPERNICUS Institutions (GROW Copernicus units, DEVCO, JRC, ESA, EUMETSAT, CLS, Mercator, ECMWF).


About GMES and AFRICA

The GMES and Africa Support Programme is a 30 million Euro joint programme co-financed by the European Commission and the African Union Commission. The Programmes uses and adapt the Copernicus Programme data and services to the African context. It is designed to specifically respond to African needs with respect to services related to water, natural resources, marine and coastal areas and to address the global needs to manage the environment, mitigate climate change and ensure civil security. It is to enable the implementation of the African Space Policy and Strategy, formulated to harness the continent’s capabilities in utilizing space science and technology for economic growth and sustainable development. In the implementation agreement, the African Union Commission is the ‘delegated authority’ responsible for the management of the programme.

GMES and Africa Programme aimed at improving African policy-makers’, planners’, scientists’, business and private sector and citizens’ capacities to design, implement, and monitor national, regional and continental policies and to promote sustainable management of natural resources through the use of Earth Observation data and derived information.

GMES and Africa introduced several key innovations: for the first time, with the inclusion of the North African countries, the Programme is pan African. It is totally managed by the African Union Commission, through the Human Resource, Science and Technology (HRST) Department. It engages the African private sector and national and regional academia.

The Presentations of the event

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3