Capacity Strengthening Towards Application of Earth Observation Tools and Services to Enhancing Marine and Coastal Areas Management in West Africa

Capacity development forms the core and contributes to the success and sustainability of every emerging field and technology. The use of Earth Observation (EO) space technology, though not new, requires a substantial amount of capacity for its sustainable application, especially in the West Africa sub-region, where knowledge of such technology and its applications is minimal. As part of the drive to adopt EO applications and space technology in Africa, the European Commission (EC) and the African Union Commission (AUC) instituted several EO initiatives to encourage African countries to utilise EO tools and services to aid their decision-making processes. Among these initiatives is the Monitoring for Environment and Security in Africa (MESA) project (2013 to 2017), which was succeeded by the ongoing Global Monitoring for Environment and Security and Africa (GMES & Africa) programme. The implementation of the MESA and GMES & Africa programmes has, at their core, capacity development strategies to help use EO data and services for mitigating the numerous challenges facing the marine and coastal areas of the sub-region. The University of Ghana, being the lead implementing institution of these initiatives for the marine domain, for the West Africa region, embarked on several capacity strengthening activities to support the use of EO tools and services in addressing the challenges of marine and coastal areas. These activities span from regional online and onsite meetings, national face-to-face training, internships, fellowships, innovation challenges and formation of open-source clubs. More than 1,150 participants, from 14 beneficiary coastal countries and more than 130 academic and research institutions in marine and coastal areas, national institutions, start-ups companies, private sector and NGOs, were trained within the West Africa region. At the regional level, 36.72% constituted female trainees. The training covered areas such as EO data access, monitoring biological indicators for fisheries management, monitoring ocean conditions for ensuring safety at sea, and monitoring and mapping coastal habitats and land use.