SERVIR is a joint development initiative of NASA and USAID, in partnership with leading regional organizations world-wide to help developing countries use information provided by Earth-observing satellites and geospatial technologies to manage climate risks and land use. The SERVIR Eastern and Southern Africa Hub based at RCMRD is currently planning for the Fiscal Year 2018. To ensure that development decision making benefits from earth observation information and geo-spatial analysis, it is important to plan for services that address the decision making contexts as envisioned by decision makers.
Speaking during one of the sessions in the work plan development workshop held at Maanzoni Lodge, Kenya, the Director of Technical Services at the RCMRD Prof. John Kiema encouraged the staff to ensure that the work plan reflected the needs and challenges. “The challenge is for all of you gathered here to remain fully engaged and participate in developing the FY18 work plan.
You know that failing to plan is planning to fail,” he said adding that the SERVIR Project had significantly improved the capacity of RCMRD in addressing the needs of member States in the ESA region. “The SERVIR-ESA project builds upon RCMRD’s existing strengths and augments our data management and training capability as the RCMRD.
The project’s activities complement RCMRD’s core mission and provide a springboard for the development of applications customized for our 20 Member States.”
SERVIR E&SA operates under four thematic areas namely: Agriculture and Food Security; Weather & Climate; Land Use Land Cover (LULC) & Ecosystems and Water & Hydro climatic disasters.
These thematic areas are supported by the Capacity Building, User Engagement, and Communications & Outreach, Geo Information Technologies (GIT) as well as Monitoring and Evaluation units. All the SERVIR-ESA team members are participating in the one week retreat.