Connecting Space to Village

SERVIR West Africa 2 (SERVIR WA 2) led by ICRISAT, uses Earth Observation data and cutting-edge science to inform decisions throughout West Africa at local, national and regional levels.

West Africa stands at a crossroads. Steep population growth, climate impacts, and urbanization accelerate pressure on natural resources through rapid deforestation, extension of agricultural land, land degradation, pollution, alteration of water flows and biodiversity loss.

In this challenge lies an opportunity. West Africa is on the brink of a transformative change, driven by youth, urbanization, and information technology. This socio-economic revolution harbors massive pent-up demand for sustainable digital solutions to realize Africa’s potential.  This opens the way for quality food, feed, fuel, and more for domestic consumption and export on world markets. This opens the door for SERVIR WA 2 to support innovative Earth Observation (EO) solutions in West Africa as it is doing in four other regions around the globe.  

IMPLEMENTATION

SERVIR WA 2 is a joint initiative of NASA and USAID. It works in partnership with leading organizations in various regions of the world to support them in providing decision makers with products and services to strengthen resilience. To this end, SERVIR WA 2 provides EO data, drawn from satellite images, GIS and predictive models, hence the slogan “connecting space to the village”.  SERVIR WA 2 joins its sister hubs in East and Southern Africa, the Himalayas and Hindu Kush, Southeast Asia and Amazonia. The SERVIR WA 2 activity is implemented by a consortium of seven regional institutions in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Niger, Nigeria, Mali and Senegal.  It is structured around five themes: Food security and agriculture; Water resources and natural disasters; Weather and climate; Land Use/Land Cover ecosystem management; and Financial instruments.

Improving Resilience through Science Partnerships

SERVIR WA 2 aims to improve resilience, food security, disaster risk reduction, and sustainable resource management at local, national, and regional scales through early action and increased use of EO information, earth science, and technologies. In doing so, SERVIR WA 2 will positively affect lives and livelihoods in West Africa as it:

  • Nurtures with the emergence of a dynamic EO collaborative scene, characterized by increased cooperation between public and private actors, and between established and aspiring entities
  • Builds the capacity of these partnerships towards the responsible exploitation of EO and other big data with artificial intelligence concerning interests at the local, national, and regional levels
  • Leverages these partnerships with an enabling environment and financial services to strengthen, using EO, the capacity of investors to quantify and control risk, enhance access to inputs and markets, and improve production potential
  • Promoting gender and social inclusion and a culture of science for society.

An Earth Observation Ecosystem in West Africa

SERVIR WA 2 will ensure that by the end of Phase 2 there will be the architecture, the services, and an enabling environment that results in:

  • Promising services reaching full operational capability and lessons have been learned from the process 
  • Regional consortium partners being equipped for the design, development, procurement, production, validation, maintenance, and operation of geospatial services based on EO data
  • Regional EO marketplace emerged, allowing for collaborative geospatial ventures and fair competition to improve the quality of services and the satisfaction of users across the public to private sector continuum.

PROGRAM INFORMATION

Goal: Increase the ability of local, national, and regional institutions to apply geospatial technologies and analysis to improve decision making and management of resources to improve the resilience of countries in the region, mitigate the impacts of climate change, and ensure appropriate land use to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Life of Program: March 2022 - March 2027

Total USAID Funding: $15million

Geographic Focus: Senegal, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Nigeria and Ghana

Implementing Partner: International Crop Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT)

Tags
West Africa Regional Fact Sheet Environment