Experts and focal points responsible for monitoring and evaluation of the 13 GMES & Africa consortia and African consortia across Africa, organized a monitoring and evaluation workshop in the Tunisian capital. The four-day workshop aimed at strengthening the capacities of the focal points, with a view to fostering common understanding and supporting experts by providing them with the necessary monitoring and evaluation tools and protocols for the GMES & Africa implementation process.
In his opening statement at the workshop, the GMES and Africa Programme Coordinator and Space Science Expert at the African Union Commission Dr. Tidiane Ouattara, observed that Effective Monitoring and Evaluation improves decision making processes. He said the workshop will help consortia effectively manage their grant projects by ensuring that funds are spent in a transparent, efficient and fair manner through timely and consistent collection of data that allow project managers make informed decisions added.
The workshop participants were introduced to GMES and Africa Monitoring and Evaluation tools, procedures and protocols. The workshop also examined the different components of the Monitoring and Evaluation system as well as opportunities to identify challenges and best practices at the 13 consortia. Workshop participants shared ideas on best practices and paved the way to distil lessons for the refinement of the GMES and Africa Monitoring and Evaluation tools, procedures and strategies.
The Global Monitoring for Environment and Security and Africa (GMES and Africa) is a flagship programme of the African Union under the African Space Policy and Strategy. The programme is implemented through grants to African institutions of regional consortia. 13 consortia representing a total of 72 African institutions have been awarded grants to implement projects in water, natural resources, marine and coastal areas management.
The programme is supported by the European Union through its Pan-African Programme. It is also supported by the European Commission (EC) COPERNICUS Earth Monitoring Programme, which provides satellite data and products from the services through the satellite EUMETCAST system of EUMETSAT. GMES and Africa is another joint programme emergent from the long-standing partnership between the European Union and the African Union.
The Sahara and Sahel Observatory coordinates the GMES & Africa OSS-North Africa project entitled "Earth Observation for Sustainable Water and Soil Management in North Africa" (EO-SLWM/NA), which aims to support decision-making in the field of sustainable natural resource and water management through the provision of products and services based on Earth Observation (EO) data and techniques. It is conducted in partnership with key institutions dedicated to the promotion and development of remote sensing in Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Mauritania and Tunisia. Funded by the European Commission and the African Union for a period of three years (2018-2021), the project aims to provide products and services based on Earth observation data and technologies to support decision-making in the field of sustainable natural resource and water management.
More specifically, it aims to:
- Develop and sustain decision support services
- Boost regional cooperation and promote the exchange of know-how
- Build capacity and raise awareness among all partners and users.
The services to be developed by the project are as follows:
- Monitoring and evaluation of water withdrawals in irrigated areas
- Monitoring and assessment of land degradation
- Seasonal agricultural monitoring, early warning and assessment.