EO for EU and ESA in Madagascar

International financial institutions (IFI) provide financial support and professional advice for development activities on local and regional scales in developing countries. Their activities are generally organised in dedicated projects financed by long-term loans or grants covering social and economical development aspects in a wide range of fields. For certain fields, EO (Earth Observation) products and services have been identified as a useful tool for supporting the monitoring and management of IFI projects in order to improve the efficiency of the investments made and to assess the impact and social benefits of the financed development activities.

ESA, as part of its Value Adding Element (VAE) programme, has been interacting with IFI and their stakeholders to understand their working environment and also their information requirements in particular with regard to EO services. This process resulted, among other things, in the definition of service specifications for the UNIFAD (UN International Fund for Agricultural Development), which were put out to tender. GAF was awarded the Service Trial 2 contract, which was directly driven by the requirements of the supported IFAD project and its local stakeholders (the AD2M project).

For an area of about 14,000 km² in Western Madagascar (Menabe region), GAF has provided dedicated EO products, such as recent land cover map with 10m spatial resolution; high-resolution digital elevation model; customised information layers regarding slope and aspect for GIS import and basic drainage system mapping for irrigation planning and flood prevention.

All the products were customised to meet the specific user requirements of the UNIFAD in the best possible way. The UN-IFAD has assessed all the products in detail.