About 140 people participated in a very full programme.

The meeting was opened by the Honourable Ms B P Sonjica, Minister for Water Affairs and Forestry who assured us that she would seek support for TIGER from the African Ministerial Council for Water (AMCOW). She was supported by addresses from CSIR, ESA, UNESCO and the Department of Science and Technology in RSA.

Keynote speeches on water and space issues and three round table discussions (information needs, CEOS space agency information supply, and capacity building requirements ) then set the scene for the workshop and laid bare the issues to be addressed. Presentations on a number of demonstration projects and related activities by a number of TIGER partners completed a very full Day 1.

For Day 2 the participants divided into 5 working groups to debate matters in more detail. Four thematic working groups considered implementational aspects of projects submitted by Principal Investigators to TIGER for free ESA data (link to AO). Themes selected were Aquifer, Watershed, Wetlands and Hydrology. The fifth working group looked at strategic planning and organisational issues for the TIGER Initiative. Each working group presented an interim report on Day 2, followed by a more considered report the following day.

There were 13 short presentations during the morning of Day 3. These were mostly selected from abstracts submitted, as well as a few invited talks on topical issues, and generated some good discussion. The afternoon comprised presentations of the working groups and consideration of the way forward. Recommendations from the working groups were all remarkably convergent and very helpful for working out how best to support the many AO proposed projects.

The fourth day was a training and data access day for PIs of proposed AO projects. It was held in the conference room at DWAF HQ in Pretoria and presentations from ESA and the Canadian Space Agency were very well received and stimulated much useful discussion.

There was also a meeting of the TIGER Interim Steering Committee during the workshop. Chris Mosecki of DWAF was elected Chairperson.

CEOS was well represented at the workshop with representatives from ESA, Canadian Space Agency, NASA, NOAA and EUMETSAT. JAXA also sent messages of encouragement.

The workshop was sponsored by CSIR and the Department of Water Affairs in South Africa, as well as ESA and UNESCO. Many thanks to them for the excellent facilities and hospitality, and also to all the speakers, working groups, and participants for making this workshop so interesting and useful.