This year is one of the most important plenary meetings of the Group on Earth Obvervations with major milestones linked to global policy agendas. There is the COP26 to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, there is also the COP15 to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainabele Development and the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration. These all bring a new set of challenges and opportunities for the international Earth Observations community.
The 25th of November NSO organized a side event at GEO week 2021 on embedding earth observation initiatives in localized contexts to ensure (financial) sustainability, focussing on the importance of involving smallholders and local governments. With the help of project pitches and a panel discussion we aimed to come to guiding principles for the inclusion of local actors. The speakers who joined this event were:
Ruud Grim - Programme coordinator at the Netherlands Space Office. One of his main tasks is to facilitate and stimulate the use of satellite based information services for societal benefit. He is currently managing the Geodata for Agriculture and Water Facility (G4AW) in which public-private partnerships develop advisory and financial services for millions of smallholder farmers.
Mark Noort - Director/Owner of HCP international, a technology broker in the fields of earth observation, geospatial information, agriculture, water and environment.
Lilia Benzid - Communication expert at the University of Tunis with more than 30 years of experience in the management and coordination of communication actions. in 2008, Lilia joined the Sahara ans Sahel Observatory (OSS) as a communications and gender officer.
Mango Estevao Mbambi - Committed to increasing opportunities for smallholder farmers, he is World Vision Angola's project coordinator for Mavo Diami. And as such he locally represents the startup KRES emerging from this project.
Frank Annor - CEO of Tahmo and postdoctoral researcher at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. He has over 15 years of work experience in the water sector in Africa especially in the Volta basin. Frank has worked in over 23 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa where the leads the TAHMO initiative.
Akua Benewaa - A suatainable financial inclusion and SME development expert. She joined Solidaridad West Africa in 2014 and is a member of the Global Expertise Team on Supporting Business Ecosystems. Currently, Akua is the coordinator of the SAT4Business project in Ghana.