The Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development(RCMRD) under the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) and Africa was one of the Consortium participating in the Stakeholder’s engagement workshop organized by African Union Commission (AUC) at the IGAD Climate Prediction & Applications Centre (ICPAC) in Nairobi. The three days event which ran from 27th to 29th March 2023, aimed to engage the institutions within the consortia, develop an integrated approach for using Earth Observation (EO) for wetlands and flooding in Africa, leverage, promote and share experiences, knowledge and best practices.
The stakeholder engagement workshop on Earth Observation for Wetland and Flooding brought together the eight (8) GMES & Africa consortia along with regional and international institutions working or interested in Wetlands and Flooding monitoring in Africa. Some of the expected outcomes from the workshop included cross-fertilization between consortia and stakeholders and sharing of experiences, knowledge and best practices , development of a roadmap for the continental wetlands and flooding network development and implementation plan drafted.
After the three days engagement, a network was created to strengthen the policy and institutional framework pillar and to engage the regional policy makers through the Regional Economic Communities (RECs), the academia and private sector roles were identified and actions/activities for their integration in the network were defined and the training activities and a communication plan for the network for the use of EO for wetlands and flooding were developed as well as an implementation plan drawn.
In addition, the GMES and Africa program Cordinator Dr Tidianne Ouattara recommended the formation of the GMES & Africa Network for Utilization of EO for Wetland & Flood Services that is in harmony with existing regional & national flood & wetland policy.
More recommendations made after the meeting were the need to develop EO flood and wetland policy for the Network that is in harmony with existing regional & national flood & wetland policy, Integrating women in the information dissemination both at local and regional levels among others.
RCMRD Consortium is one of the institutions implementing Wetland Monitoring and Assessment service area under the GMES and Africa program. The service area aims to ;
1. Build institutional and human capacities in accessing and utilizing EO data in assessing and monitoring Wetlands.
2. improve decision making process in the management of Wetlands as a natural resource through provision of additional pertinent information.
3. Foster partnerships by addressing common and interconnected environmental challenges resulting from widespread conversion of Wetland to other land use.
Under this service area, some fof the products developed have been used in the development of ecosystem valuation and climate change vulnerability assessment reports example for Kenya Water Towers components of the KWTP project.
Visit our geoportal to access the data developed on this service area; https://gmesgeoportal.rcmrd.org/
