Stakeholder Engagement Workshop on Earth Observation for Land Degradation (LD) Monitoring. March 27-29, 2023, Rabat-Morocco.
The Sahara and Sahel Observatory (OSS) has just completed its participation in the Stakeholder Engagement Workshop on Earth Observation for Land Degradation (LD) Monitoring which took place in Rabat, Morocco from March 27 to 29, 2023.
This event was organized by the African Union (AU), with the support of the UN-affiliated African Regional Center for Space Science and Technology in French Language (CRASTE-LF), and brought together decision-makers, researchers and experts of the GMES&Africa consortia as well as regional and international institutions working on Land Degradation (LD) Monitoring in Africa.
This meeting comes after the continental workshop on Land Degradation Monitoring in Africa, with the support of Earth Observation (EO), held by the OSS and the African Union Commission (AUC) in October 2022 in Abidjan, with the aim of discussing aligned approaches for monitoring Land Degradation (LD) in Africa, including mainly remote sensing.
Discussions focused on building synergies and consolidating cross-fertilization actions to ensure optimal and operational use of EO for monitoring land degradation in Africa and made it possible for the participants to identify opportunities for partnership and collaboration to better promote the land degradation in Africa monitoring service developed by the OSS.
Several recommendations were made, including the involvement of institutions and operational networks (academics networks, Women in GMES, the consortia, African institutions, etc.), the integration and capitalization of the resources from other African institutions, and finally the relevance of providing the consortia members and the partners with communication products that help achieve better visibility of MISLAND_AFRICA on the African continent.
It is worth recalling that the OSS benefited from considerable support of the European Union Commission Joint Research Center (JRC) to develop the MISLAND_AFRICA platform in partnership with the AUC and in collaboration with the other GMES&Africa consortia. The platform will enable the OSS-North Africa Consortium to support African institutions and countries in the acquisition of useful data and knowledge for sustainable land and water management.
This tool provides access to geospatial indicators to monitor the land degradation evolution at the national, regional, and continental levels. Along with the innovative and Open Source solutions, the architecture and technology of this platform ensure interoperability, including new emerging technologies such as Big Data and Cloud Computing, to efficiently process large volumes of data and generate timely continental products.
In addition, the private sector has been called upon to implement the necessary steps to efficiently and operationally process the available satellite data and produce services that meet the needs and concerns of end users. In collaboration with the public sector and the academic community, they have been qualified as leaders of innovation that can meet the needs of decision-makers and provide users with efficient decision-making tools.
Researchers were invited for more involvement in the production of scientific knowledge based on approved methodologies and for more support and assistance to young people in the use of innovative technologies (Artificial Intelligence and Cloud Computing : both applied to the EO field).
The OSS representatives took the Rabat workshop to meet with the participants from international organizations and institutions and discuss prospects and future orientations, particularly in terms of capacity building in the framework of GMES&Africa.
In this regard, CRASTE-LF plans on holding two face-to-face train-the-trainer sessions in 2023 on "Deep Learning and EO for digital agriculture" and "Entrepreneurship 4.0 based on EO in natural resource management” for the benefit of the OSS-North Africa Consortium.