BRAGMABridging Actions for GMES & Africa

Newsletter no.2 | January 2013

The BRAGMA project, coordinated by IICT is a Coordination and Support Action to GMES and Africa, supported by the European Commission. GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) is the European Programme for the establishment of a European capacity for Earth Observation: http://www.gmes.info

Side event of the IST-Africa Conference: GMES & Africa Workshops

After the kick-off meeting in Lisbon, January 2012, the BRAGMA Project held a meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on the 7th of May 2012, as a side event to the IST-Africa 2012 conference and before the JEG8 Meeting.This meeting focused on the organization of Thematic Workshops, which are based on the following sub-themes:

1. Marine and Coastal Areas, to be held in Kenya;

2. Water Resources Management, which will take place in Nigeria;

3. Natural Resources Management, to be hosted by Egypt.

The key objectives of these workshops will be:

• To identify the available capacities within Africa regarding each Thematic Area(networks, expertise, user communities);

• To identify potential synergies with GMES and Africa related projects funded at national, regional and continental level and heighten the available capacities within Africa regarding the Thematic Areas being addressed (through networks, expertise, user communities);

• To exchange experience and know-how in the field;

• To provide the consolidated and validated contribution to the drafting of the GMES and Africa Action Plan in the respective Thematic Area.

The rationale to undertake these workshops, in scope of the BRAGMA Project, is:

• To provide a consolidated validation of the GMES and Africa Action Plan chapter concerned with the specific Thematic Areas addressed during the meeting, with the goal of contributing to the Joint Africa-European Union Strategic Action Plan with concrete and visible results;

• To help decision makers in understanding the importance of EO for sustainable development and poverty alleviation;

• To outline operational modalities to reach GMES & Africa Objectives, allowing Africa to make full use of the potential of space systems for sustainable development and reinforcing Africa’s capacity and ownership in using and contributing to remote sensing science;

• To capitalise on the investment made in the Process launched in December 2007;

• Identify priorities to enhance the use of EO in Africa;

• To define modalities to establish African-European operational collaboration to make best use of GMES Europe services in Africa.

Experts on each Thematic Area will be selected to prepare each workshop with documents to be distributed well in advance to discuss during the workshops – the collective feedback from all participating experts will be consolidated in the revised chapter of the GMES and Africa Action Plan. Each workshop will cover sub-themes and Cross Cutting Issues and is targeted for participation from Thematic National Focal Points, Regional Implementation Centres (RICs), RECs, AUC, UNECA and the EC. The expected outcomes of each workshop will be the Revised Chapter on the Thematic Area of the GMES and Africa Action Plan endorsed by African Member States.

Side event of the IST Africa Conference: one-day public workshop

On the 8th of May 2012, BRAGMA organised a GMES and Africa Workshop - this one-day public workshop provided an introductory background to the evolution of GMES & Africa, focussed on progress to date and showcased a number of relevant projects supporting work in different thematic areas within GMES and Africa.

Newsletter no.2 | January 2013

Organised as a pre-conference event to IST-Africa 2012, target participants included thematic subject experts as well as sophisticated end-users of GMES and Africa-related applications.

Both BRAGMA and EAMNet presented their projects during this workshop, as well as their joint effort to support the initiative, in particular by contributing to the organisation of the first Thematic Workshop on Marine and Coastal Areas.

This was followed by a discussion on the synergies which should be established with GMES & Africa-related projects, such as closing project GARNET-EO, which produced relevant information to be integrated into the GMES and Africa Action Plan. The workshop was finalised with an overview of the past, present and future EDF-funded projects, a long term investment in the development of EO applications in Sub-Saharan Africa: AMESD & MESA.

E-collaboration tools: online platforms

Information on the GMES & Africa process and BRAGMA activities are being posted on 2 online collaborative platforms:

BRAGMA E-collaboration toolCapacity4Dev (run by the EU)

The BRAGMA E-collaboration platform is a multipurpose tool, storing relevant information by thematic area, for acessby all stakeholders and experts.

It also provides a discussion forum for the community to provide feedback to BRAGMA, namely considering the GMES and Africa Action Plan.Capacity 4 Dev is run by the EC’s DG DEVCO, and

Marine and Coastal Areas Workshop for thematic experts, Mombasa, Kenya

As agreed with the European Commission and African Union Commission, BRAGMA project will focus its activities on three of the nine GMES and Africa Thematic Areas, starting with Marine and Coastal Areas. A two day invitation-only Marine and Coastal Areas Workshop for thematic experts took place in Mombasa, Kenya 9 - 10 October 2012.

The workshop, co-sponsored by the European Commission (EC), BRAGMA, African Union Commission, (AUC) and MoHEST brought together over 80 experts from Africa and Europe

including coastal area focal points, marine and coastal areas expert groups, Regional Implementation Centres (RIC) focused on Marine and Coastal Areas, BRAGMA project partners and Government officials who are involved in the Marine and Coastal Areas together with

BRAGMA E-collaboration platform

Participants at the Workshop

focuses on the GMES & Africa process. The platform can be accessed by everyone, but to be able to make comments and interact on the platform one must sign in as a member of the GMES & Africa page.

representatives from related projects and programmes, including UNESCO/IOC, EDF Programmes (PUMA-AMESD-MESA), GEOSS (AfriGEOSS), African Integrated Maritime Strategy - Maritime Surveillance and EAMNet FP7 project.

In summary the workshop consisted of a high level official opening session, a session covering the background and existing EO and marine and coastal areas initiatives, as well as a presentation of the marine and coastal areas baseline study. Following these introductions the participants were divided into three parallel working groups (based on interest areas that had been previously defined) which consisted of the following topics:

Capacity4dev e-collaboration platform

The BRAGMA GMES & Africa Workshop Report and the JEG8 Meeting Report are available at the following links:http://www.bragma.eu/home/files/BRAGMA_WorkshopReport_DaresSalaam.pdfhttp://www.bragma.eu/home/files/JEG8Report_Tanzania_May12.pdfPresentations from the event are available athttp://www.bragma.eu/home/default.asp?page=doc-by-id&docid=31

Newsletter no.2 | January 2013

• GMES and Africa services for Marine and Coastal Area Management - this topic covered marine and coastal management, planning and policy issues; data and information needs for marine and coastal management and decision-making; capacity building network of Higher Education Institutions for EO application in marine and coastal management;

• Networking in a GMES and Africa Service specifically addressing: marine and coastal surveillance system and network; forecast system and a disaster early warning system; a Network of Coastal Sentinel Stations;

• Earth Observation (EO) Science & Technology for Marine and Coastal Areas in regard to: sentinel stations and in-situ data calibration of marine and coastal parameters; EO methods and modelling for marine and coastal management; capacity building and maintenance.

AARSE Conference, El Jadida, Morocco

The African Association of Remote Sensing of the Environment (AARSE) conducts conferences every two years since 1996. The conference provides a platform for scientific exchange & input to policy on science and space applications (e.g. Space Leadership Conferences, ARM Constellation, African Space Agency). The AARSE 2012 Conference was held in El Jadida, Morocco, October 29 – November 2, 2012 and was entitled ‘Earth Observation & Geo-information Sciences for Environment and Development in Africa: Global Vision and Local Action Synergy’. The Conference provided an excellent forum for BRAGMA to engage with relevant stakeholders and experts.

The GMES & Africa Side Event (Roundtable) was held on the 30th October 2012 from 16:15 - 18:00. The Roundtable was organized immediately after the Special Session on AfriGEOSS which demonstrated the close linkage between GEOSS and GMES.

The Roundtable managed to bring GMES & Africa to the centre of the EO agenda in Africa.

This was achieved by the fact that the EO Community recognized that BRAGMA is delivering by facilitating consensus

building (e.g. the outcome of the Marine & Coastal Environment Workshop). Consequently, GMES&Africa and BRAGMA are mentioned in the El Jadida Declaration. The Session was well attended and comprised representatives from UNESCO/IOC, ESA, Vito, AfriGEOSS and several national delegates. Participants regretted the long delay in the follow-up of the Lisbon Declaration related to GMES & Africa with the subsequent slow drafting and consultation of the GMES & Africa Action Plan. The Session stressed that for GMES & Africa to succeed, there is a need for an African grassroots approach, African ownership and African leadership.

Missing elements in the GMES & Africa Initiative include the insufficient involvement of African space institutions and programmes including the African Resources Management Constellation, African universities, research institutes and services providers, the Joint AU/

UNESCO High Level Experts Mechanism on EO and the African governance structure to lead the implementation of the programme. However, participants welcomed the BRAGMA initiative as a way to revitalize GMES & Africa. Enhanced consultations between African Union Commission and African Member States are urgently needed. The outcomes of the Roundtable were presented at the Meeting of the Joint Africa-EU Strategy (JAES) - Science, Information Society and Space Partnership: Joint Expert Group (JEG8) in Cape Town, South Africa: 6-8 November, 2012.

Each of these working groups addressed specific discussion topics as detailed in the programme - this workshop was thus a technical consultation forum focused on the mentioned topics.

The outputs from each of the working groups were presented in a final plenary session and were compiled and uploaded on a web platform in order to give the participants an opportunity to make further contributions.

The revised Marine and Coastal Areas chapter of the GMES and Africa Baseline study was endorsed with recommendations to set up a unit at the AUC to coordinate the implementation of the Action Plan.

Participants at the

Marine & Coastal

Areas Workshop

Newsletter no.2 | January 2013

BRAGMA participated in the "10th EUMETSAT User Forum in Africa" which took place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from the 1st-5th October 2012. The programme consisted of an Opening Ceremony, a Technical Visit, seven sessions, and a special anniversary session on "Earth observation for weather, climate and

10th EUMETSAT User Forum in Africa

environment in Africa: A vision for the next 20 years”.For the sixth session, which focussed on Earth Observation for Development in Africa, BRAGMA contributed with a presentation on its developments and

future activities. This was preceded by a presentation by the AUC on the GMES & Africa initiative, thus providing a clear connection between the initiative and the project that supports it.

Relevant Events - 2013

IPWE 20137-9 Jan 2013, Izmir, Turkey

Growing demands for water and increased pollution loads threaten the quality of many lakes, rivers, estuaries and groundwater bodies around the world and pose serious threats to public health.

http://content.asce.org/conferences/ipwe2013/index.html

Innovations in Remote Sensing Event23 Jan 2013, London, UK

The event, hosted by the Centre for Earth Observation Instrumentation (CEOI), will provide a great opportunity to catch up with the latest Earth observation instrumentation technologies, as well as highlighting potential areas for licensing, collaboration or supply. The event is open to all interested parties.

h t t p : / / w w w . c e o i . a c . u k / i n d e x .php?opt ion=com_content&view=art ic le&id=106:innovations- in-remote-sensing-event-wednesday-23rd-january-2013&catid=7:latest

3rd GEOSS African Water Cycle Coordination Initiative (AfWCCI) Workshop 4-5 Feb 2013, El Jadida, Morocco

The Workshop is a follow-up event to the 3rd African Water Cycle Symposium, held in Libreville, Gabon, in February 2012, which recognized the need for enhanced cooperation among the various initiatives and programs across Africa that address water-related issues, and integrated water resources management (IWRM) in particular.

http://www.editoria.u-tokyo.ac.jp/projects/AfWCCI/morocco/index.php

International Conference on Natural Resource Management in a Changing World24-27 Feb 2013, Al-Ain, Abu Dhabi

This conference will deal with all aspects relating to NRM and the changing world.

http://www.fos.uaeu.ac.ae/conference/nrm/

High-level Meeting on National Drought Policy (HMNDP) - Towards More Drought Resilient Societies11-15 March, Geneva, Switzerland

Given the current concerns with climate change, projected increases in the frequency, intensity, and duration of droughts and resulting impacts on many sectors, in particular food, water, and energy.

http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/wcp/agm/meetings/hmndp13/index_en.php

35th International Symposium on Remote Sensing of Environment 22-26 April, Beijing, China

Earth Observation and Global Environmental Change - 50 Years of Remote Sensing: Progress and Prospects

http://www.isrse35.org/

GMES & Africa future Events

• GMES&Africa Coordination Team Meeting: Brussels, Belgium, February 2013• Water Resources Management Workshop - technical consultation forum: Abuja, Nigeria, Spring 2013, date TBC.• Natural Resources Workshop - technical consultation forum: Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, Summer 2013, date TBC.• Validation Workshop: South Africa, Summer 2013, date TBC

Links:http://www.bragma.euhttp://bragma.mixxt.eu/ http://capacity4dev.ec.europa.eu/africa-eu-part.gmes/