Kick-off of the national stakeholder awareness workshop on the use of Digital Earth Africa services, May 20-22, 2025 - Tunis.
Organized by the Sahara and Sahel Observatory (OSS) in partnership with Digital Earth Africa (DE Africa), this three-day event brings together representatives of Tunisian institutions, experts, researchers, and sustainable development stakeholders to strengthen national ownership of the DE Africa tools and services.
The opening ceremony featured a keynote address by Mr. Haythem Ismail of the National Center for Mapping and Remote Sensing, who emphasized the importance of integrating Earth Observation technologies into public policies, particularly for environmental monitoring, territorial planning, and sustainable resources management. Mr. Marouen Selmi, Head of Department at CRDA Jendouba, highlighted the challenges Tunisia faces, particularly land degradation and water scarcity, and highlighted the value of leveraging DE Africa platforms as an accessible and practical solution. Mrs. Ndeye Fatou MAR, OSS Land and Biodiversity Department Director, reaffirmed her Organization's commitment to supporting African countries in adopting digital solutions and highlighted the complementarity between DE Africa and the GMES&Africa and COPERNICEA projects, calling for a more consistent use of DE Africa tools in national strategies. Mr. Joseph Tuyishimire, Head of User Engagement at Digital Earth Africa, presented the platform's objectives and emphasized the importance of this collaboration to strengthen the adoption of DE Africa services at the national level.
The workshop aims to raise awareness among stakeholders of the potential of DE Africa services and their importance in supporting sustainable development. It will help present DEA's vision and results, highlight the usefulness of DE Africa's services, and advocate for greater ownership by national institutions to support decision-making for sustainable natural resources management.
The workshop agenda combines theoretical presentations, practical demos, and interactive discussions and will allow participants to familiarize themselves with DE Africa's Cloud Computing tools, particularly Sandbox, and to optimize their use to generate products related to themes of interest (monitoring land degradation, vegetation, agricultural areas, water, etc.). Participants will also have the opportunity to share their experiences and sit with DEA's technical partners. Synergies between DE Africa and other projects, including GMES&Africa and COPERNICEA, will hopefully be consolidated to provide more thematic solutions and resources relevant to the Tunisian context.