From 21 to 22 October 2013, UN-SPIDER participated in the TIGER workshop 2013, held in Tunis, Tunisia. The TIGER initiative was launched in 2002 within the context of the Committee of Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) by the European Space Agency (ESA) responding to the urgent need for action in Africa expressed at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD). The overall scope is to assist African countries to overcome problems faced in the collection, analysis and use of water related geo-information by exploiting the advantages of Earth Observation (EO) technology. Since its launch, the TIGER initiative has involved 250 African Researchers, and more than 100 stakeholder institutions in various service demonstration or preoperational projects.
A special part of the initiative is the TIGER Capacity Building Facility (TCBF), which organizes the capacity building actions and events including biannual workshops for the whole TIGER community. The main objectives of the workshop where to present the achievements of the different TIGER components namely the TCBF, the pre-operational TIGER-Net project and the Alcantara research fellowships. Building on its achievements in the last ten years, it was the aim to identify the main strengths and weaknesses of the TIGER initiative and preparing the basis for future activities.
Since its launch, the TIGER initiative has evolved thanks to the support of different African and International partners (e.g., AMCOW, AfDB, CSA, CSIR, DWAF-South Africa, UNESCO, UN-ECA among others). Lately, UNDP Cap-Net and the World Bank also joined as new partners to the TIGER Initiative.The main objectives of the workshop where to present the achievements of the different TIGER components namely the TCBF, the pre-operational TIGER-Net project and the Alcantara research fellowships. Building on its achievements in the last ten years, it was the aim to identify the main strengths and weaknesses of the TIGER initiative and preparing the basis for future activities.
Further information, workshop presentations and other relevant documents are available on ESA's website.
