The Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD), consortium in partnership with its Global Monitoring for Environment and Security and Africa (GMES and Africa) project implementing partner; the Rwanda Water Resources Board (RWB) organized a Stakeholders engagement workshop on 11th and 12th October in Rwanda.
The two days Stakeholder’s Engagement workshop was officially opened by the Head of Knowledge and Forecasting Hub Department, Rwanda Water Resources Board Mr. Bernard Musana. He appreciated the long-standing partnership between RMRD and RWB not only through GMES and Africa but with other initiatives as well. During the opening remarks, Mr Bernard emphasized that ‘The GMES and Africa collaborations with RCMRD started in 2018 and Rwanda has benefited through the installation of the E-station during phase 1 of the project.
The aim of the workshop was to acquire the needs of the different institutions in the union of Rwanda that are dealing with Earth Observation applications in different sectors of the economy. Additionally, it aimed at sensitizing the various stakeholders from the natural resources management authorities in the Lands sector, Energy, Water, Mining, Agriculture, and Environment of the existence of the natural resources monitoring tools provided by the GMES & Africa first phase in understanding the status of their natural resources, and subsequently monitoring them.
Additionally, it aimed to acquire the needs of the local institutions in the country in the three thematic areas RCMD is implementing of Land Degradation Monitoring and Assessment, Wetland Monitoring and Assessment and Open Regional Reference Vector Database for Water and Agro-ecological zones in order to orient services from these thematic areas to their needs.
The following institutions were represented in the workshop:
1. Rwanda Water Resources Board
2. Rwanda Mines, Petroleum and Gas board
3. Rwanda Energy Group
4. Rwanda Meteorology Department
5. Rwanda space agency
6. Rwanda Ministry of Environment
About GMES and Africa
The Global Monitoring for Environment and Security and Africa (GMES and Africa) is a flagship program of the African Union Commission (AUC) under the African Space Policy and Strategy. It sets a pathway for the continent to be globally competitive in space activities, including Earth Observation (EO), and to develop a viable continental space programme. With continent-wide coverage, the programme is implemented through grants to African institutions under the banners of regional consortia. 8 consortia were awarded grants through open competitive bidding to implement projects in water, natural resources, marine and coastal areas management. They represent 114 institutions established in 45 African countries and 6 European Countries.
The Programme is guided by six pillars at the continental level. The six pillars form the basis of the expected outputs/objectives. These Objectives are implemented as specific activities that are deliberately formulated to target the regional and national priorities in the countries of implementation. The six GMES & Africa pillars are as follows:
a) Policy and Institutional framework
b) Infrastructure and Data
c) Information Services
d) Training and Capacity Development
e) Knowledge Management and cross-fertilization
f) Outreach, Awareness and Engagement
Photo 1: Group Photo of the participants
