THE Group on Earth Observations (GEO) and some Research and Education Networks (RENs) in Africa are in advanced discussions on how to maximise the potential of earth observation data for promoting research and innovation in Africa.
The West and Central African Research and Education Networks (WACREN), the Arab States Research and Education Network (ASREN) and their European and South American counterparts, RedCLARA and GÉANT, respectively, met with GEO officials at the GEO Week 2022, which ended in Accra earlier this month, to discuss how RENs in Africa can facilitate the flow and use of earth observation (EO) data in GEO communities.
At the Accra meeting, the parties identified knowledge gaps, connectivity issues and federated identity management as some of the areas that need to be catered for in the interest of the burgeoning EO communities across Africa. While RENs recognised the need to be abreast with the operations of EO communities, GEO said the need for a more reliable, robust connectivity to serve some unserved and underserved GEO communities within Africa is needed today more than ever.
The two parties agreed on the need for a coordinated, thematic capacity-building and knowledge management programme to fix the issue of knowledge gaps among RENs and other parties in the EO ecosystem in Africa.
At the meeting, the parties realised the need for needs assessment through research to provide the concrete basis for developing and deploying required infrastructure and solutions to facilitate data access and use to analyse and predict disasters and plan for disaster management.
The REN-GEO collaboration is in line with the EU-funded AfricaConnect3 project, which seeks to, among other things, enhance the development, deployment, awareness creation and expansion of digital infrastructure, advanced service and collaboration to enhance digital transformation in research and learning communities in Africa.
The parties agreed to work within the UNESCO Recommendations on Open Science framework.
Through this collaboration with GEO, RENs in Africa will be contributing to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals, including Goal 4 – Quality Education, Goal 9 – Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, Goal 13 – Climate Action, Goal 14 – Life Below Water, Goal 15 – Life on Land among others.