1. GEO Capacity Building Resource Facility Portal Andiswa Mlisa GEO Secretariat CEOS WGCapD 5th Annual Meeting Hampton VA, USA 30 March - 1 April 2016

2. GEOSS in AFRICA
CBERS Africa, GEONETCast, SERVIR Africa, Sand and Dust Storm Warning System, AEGOS, Wildland Fire Early Warning System, Puma, AMESD, BIOTA, TIGER, SoDa, MERIT, African Protected Areas, ClimDev Africa, ChlorOGIN, FAO-AfriCover, MAFA, ARMC, EAMNET, WATPLAN, AFRIMASON, GARNET-E, SAGA-EO, EOPower, GEONETCab, AGRICAB, MESA, GEO Global Land Cover, GMES & Africa, GEO BON, GEO GLAM; GFOI; Africa Water Cycle, Blue Planet; etc.

3. GEO Members / Regional Initiatives

4. African Membership in GEO

5. AfriGEOSS Initiative Established within the GEO framework to:
Enhance Africa’s capability to use and manage EO for decision making;
Foster the activities of African countries in GEO by linking existing capabilities and initiatives in Africa;
Provide the necessary framework for African countries to initiate mutual activities within the scope of GEO;
Create synergies and reduce duplication.
Contribute to the implementation of the African Space Policy and Strategy;
AfriGEOSS therefore aims to:

6. AfriGEOSS Action Areas
The AfriGEOSS Implementation Plan identified 6 Action Areas, namely ….

7. Africa in GEO Governance
Ministerial & Plenary
27 Members, South Africa Co-Chair
7 Participating Organizations
Executive Committee
Egypt, Senegal and South Africa
Programme Board
Central Africa Republic, Egypt, Gabon, Madagascar, Somalia, Zimbabwe
Secretariat
South African secondment

8. Growing Political Acknowledgement
26h AU Summit, January 2016
“URGES Member States, RECs, Partners such as AfriGEOSS and the Commission to popularize space science and technology in socio-economic development, mobilize domestic resources and implement the Space policy and strategy;”
AUC STC-EST, October 2015 “Urge the formulation of a partnership between the African Union Commission and AfriGEOSS geared towards the implementation of the African Space Policy”

9. GEO Data Sharing Principles
Full and Open Exchange of Data
Data and Products at Minimum Time Delay and
Free of Charge or Cost of Reproduction
“Free data access” Announcements
CBERS, 2007 (Brazil & China)
Landsat family, 2008 (US)
Sentinels, 2014 (EC)
SPOT World Heritage Programme, 2014 (France)
Shuttle Radar Topography Mission-30m, 2014 (US)
Looking at the Global first: we acknowledge one of GEO’s major successes has been on the promotion of Open Data Sharing Principles.
Since the pass of the Data Sharing Principles, there has been major announcement of satellite data being made freely available.
GEO Cape Town Plenary 2007

10. AfriGEOSS Consultations on EO Infrastructure for Data Access & Dissemination
Identify current data dissemination framework for Africa based on the existing infrastructure;
Data acquisition for Africa needs to be institutionalized and coordinated based on the different user profiles and needs to enable data & infrastructure providers to respond appropriately;
Advocate and raise awareness of available data and existing initiatives;
Three main actions were identified for AfriGEOSS, the first two being critical for ensuring appropriate solutions are put in place:
It starts with knowing what is on the ground because Africa has space capabilities already. Within the AfriGEOSS framework a cooperation amongst these existing resources needs to be formulated; in this way the engagement with the international partners, especially the data providers, becomes much more efficient and ensures data is made accessible to Africa
As we advocate for streamlining the use of EO in decision making, we seeing a forever increase of users. However the users are not in the same level, we have varying profiles of who we call users and we need to make sure the technologies respond accordingly. For example, some users require raw data i.e. only orthorectified imagery, others require products such as an NDVI and for decision makers, they require information such as the rate of change in land cover or use. The media and infrastructure needed to meet these user needs are not the same.

11. Data & Infrastructure Coordination Team
Support EO data (satellite & in-situ) access and dissemination in Africa by identification existing infrastructure, gaps and recommend actions for the community to implement.
African Space Policy & Strategy
Undertake a SWOT analysis of African EO infrastructure (data receiving, data processing, data archiving, and data distribution)
Resource optimization of existing EO infrastructure
Identify and exploit other continental infrastructure that enable EO data access and dissemination (e.g. ICT)
Develop action plan towards building EO infrastructures that respond to gaps
Advocate for free and open access of African owned data
The work required in this task is big, hence we have decided to start with access to satellite data, to ensure the released free and open satellite data becomes accessible to Africa – beyond the policy level.
This work will contribute to the implementation of the African Space Policy and Strategy under approval.
” ACCESSING SPACE SERVICES….
ensure optimal access to space-derived data, information services and products ”
African Space Policy draft document

12. Earth Observations Capabilities in Africa
Undertake a SWOT analysis of African EO infrastructure (data acquisition, receiving, data processing, data archiving, and data distribution).
7 of the 11 satellite receiving stations are Africa owned
4 countries with space engineering capabilities
Provide access to a number of sensors through online catalogs and offline access - hard drives
Data access policies vary from country to country and sensor to sensor
Over 350 GEONETCast stations deliver about 200 satellite products
In-situ observations networks
The infrastructure audit has started with satellite data / products ground receiving stations.
Here we have also mapped what data each receiving station has and how that data can be accessible.
For in-situ observations we are yet to start. This will require establishing an expert team from the thematic areas, we would welcome working with WIGOS on this

13. Earth Observations Capabilities in Africa
For the satellite
Space Agencies and Space Institutes
National Remote Sensing Centers
Regional Centers
Research centers

14. Invitation!
1st AfriGEOSS Symposium Date: 27 – 29 April 2016 Venue: Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe