One of the objectives of the KADI project is to support AU-EU policy cooperation. This involves liaising with other AU-EU projects or initiatives.
At the end of January 2024, KADI met with the African Union Commission to discuss collaboration with the GMES and Africa project. GMES and Africa is for the development of services for water, natural resources, marine and coastal areas, addressing the global needs to manage the environment, and ensure civil security. GMES and Africa is made up of 8 consortia covering 5 regions involving 167 African institutions.
During the meeting, we identified the areas of collaboration in the AU-EU framework are policy, services development, training and knowledge management. Connection through these areas is possible as both projects include these components. For example, the GMES and Africa project includes an academic network of 28-32 African Universities. This type of collaboration will be mutually beneficial for the training components in both projects (and beyond) in terms of knowledge exchange and dissemination related to training opportunities.
In relation to cooperation and knowledge exchange, KADI actively participated in the webinar to commemorate the International Women’s Day 2024. The event was organised on March 7th by Women in GMES and Africa with the theme, ‘African women at the heart of climate action’.
“In its bid to enhance the opportunities from combining satellite and in-situ earth observation data in Africa, KADI actively engages with different actors and initiatives that focus on these.” said Dr. Theresia Bilola, the project manager of KADI. “Engaging with GMES and Africa presents an opportunity to strengthen and support AU-EU cooperation in earth observation using approaches that recognise and benefit from new and already existing expertise”, she added.
We are looking forward to more collaboration in the upcoming months though:
- Connecting the training components of both projects for collaboration.
- Collaborating in relation to the regional, continental and thematic workshops.
- Inviting, participating and disseminating information about both projects.
- Collaborating on the GMES and Africa joint workshop which targets a variety of stakeholders in relation to land use, water, natural resources, policy makers and service users.
Do you wish to collaborate with the KADI project? Feel free to contact us!