As part of the first meeting of the Technical Committee of the Global Monitoring for the Environment and Security in Africa Program (GMES & Africa), held in Tunis from 14 to 16 May 2018, a visit to the OSS headquarters was organized for the Committee’s members. Following a welcome address delivered by the OSS Executive Secretary, Mr Khatim Kherraz, the GMES & Africa delegation was able to meet with the OSS staff and to have a closer and more detailed idea about the Organization’s work in the field of spatial observation.
The aim of this 1st meeting is to finalize the proposals submitted by the consortia, focusing mainly on identifying the infrastructure and data needs of each consortium, their service development methodologies, training and communication needs, as well as performance indicators underpinned by the GMES & Africa Logical Framework. It was an opportunity to identify and agree on the roles and responsibilities of all actors and stakeholders, and design an integrated implementation roadmap.
The program comprises five consortia of African institutions, selected to implement GMES and Africa, in five sub-regions: North Africa, Central Africa, West Africa, East Africa and South Africa.
The OSS is the regional center for the implementation of the GMES & Africa program in North Africa (Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia). Its role is to support decision making in the sustainable management of water and natural resources through the provision of products and services based on Earth Observation data and techniques from 2018 to 2021.
GMES & Africa is in the final stages of preparation for the signing of a consortium with proposals. The Tunis meeting chairs the Nairobi, Kenya workshop which is scheduled for end-May 2018, where stakeholders, including the GMES Program Management Unit and Africa and the Technical Assistance Team, and Consortia and Regional Economic Communities (RECs) will analyze the details of each proposal.