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Some 80 people attended the event; download the complete Session Report
Recognizing the importance of satellite data for Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) elsewhere and the urgent need for action in Africa expressed at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), the European Space Agency (ESA) in the context of the Committee of Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) WSSD follow-on programme, launched the TIGER initiative in 2002 aimed at:
“assisting African countries to overcome problems faced in the collection, analysis and dissemination of water related geo-information by exploiting the advantages of Earth Observation (EO) technology”.
The achievement of this objective requires a long-term strategy pursuing three main directions:
- Support improved governance and decision-making in IWRM: develop, implement and assess a cost effective sustainable model to improve decision making and governance (at regional, national and local scales) by using space-based information to provide accurate and timely geo-information for the integrated water resource management process.
- Contributing to enhance institutional, human and technical capacity: support the consolidation of a critical mass of technical centres in Africa with the skills and capabilities to derive and disseminate space-based water relevant information to water authorities and the relevant stakeholders for IWRM at regional, national and local scales.
- Fostering sustainability: Development of strategy for strengthening and sustaining EO-supported IWRM information and decision-support systems in the long term.
Since its initiation, significant steps has been made towards the achievement of these results and TIGER involves now more than 200 African organisations (water and basin authorities, technical centres, universities, regional organisations, etc…) in different projects around the continent aiming at developing the technical, human and institutional capacity to bridge the water information gap in Africa using EO technology.
In this context the TIGER Steering Committee organised the TIGER Workshop 2005 at the ESA premises of ESRIN in Frascati (Rome), Italy, the 3rd and 4th October 2005, in order to review progress to date and to prepare the next steps in consultation with the TIGER stakeholder group.
The TIGER Workshop 2005 brought together the TIGER stakeholders group (African water authorities, universities, technical centres, space agencies, development partners, etc..) in order to review the status of the initiative, analyse the information needs of the African water sector and plan the future developments of TIGER. The objectives of the workshop included:
- Report of achievements and progress of the initiative so far:
- Report on the progress of TIGER projects to date including early results;
- Identifying best practices and successful cases of EO-based Information services for Integrated Water Resource Management;
- Review and discuss the implementation plan for the next 3 years:
- Exploring alternatives for developing the initiative at sub-regional levels;
- Assessment of opportunities to obtain funding for IWRM activities;
- Training and capacity building;
- Synergies with existing initiatives;
- Analysis of the information needs for water resource management and environmental monitoring in Africa:
- Analysis of technical, institutional human limitations;
- Review the requirements for a better access to EO data in Africa;
- Detail the in-situ data measurements and requirements;
The event involved:
- A two day Workshop (3rd and 4th October);
- A three day Training session dedicated to the ESA TIGER Principal Investigators (5th to 7th October). The Training session addressed the needs of technical operators with only a basic knowledge of image processing and remote sensing.
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