Meeting Announcements

Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Ministerial Summit

9-10 November 2023, Cape Town, South Africa

You are invited to help set the future direction of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) at the Cape Town Ministerial Summit, to be held 9-10 November 2023 as part of GEO Week 2023.

The theme for this year’s GEO Week is The Earth Talks. It reflects an urgent need for discussion, debate and decisions on how we can better use Earth observations to listen and respond to what our planet, and the societies that depend on it, are saying. We all face questions on how to deal with more frequent extreme weather events, increased food security challenges, and the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. The Group on Earth Observations (GEO) helps provide answers. This inter-governmental partnership is uniquely positioned to provide trusted, freely available Earth observation information that allows decision makers to monitor the state of the Earth, take informed and coordinated action, and report back to multilateral environmental agreements.

GEO partners have made great strides so far, making Earth observation data more freely available, and developing tools to help countries with early warning, crop monitoring and tackling deforestation, among other applications. However, as the partnership nears the end of the implementation period of its 2016-2025 Strategic Plan, the Ministerial Summit will be the time to agree on a new strategy.

I would be delighted to welcome you to Cape Town to cement this future direction for GEO. The Summit will bring together Ministers, heads of international organizations and business leaders, as well as representatives from the diverse GEO community. Through a Ministerial Declaration, we will demonstrate our commitment to tackling pressing global challenges through partnership.

The Cape Town Summit will be an opportunity to:

• Discover Earth Observation-based solutions on food security, deforestation, mining and more

• Unlock action on the triple planetary crisis

• Demonstrate leadership on a global stage.

• Network with other Ministers, environmental leaders and the Earth observation community

As host Minister for the Summit, I would also like to invite you to a dinner on the evening of 9th November, ahead of the Summit programme on 10 November.

Please join me in taking full advantage of the many excellent opportunities presented by the GEO 2023 Ministerial Summit. We value your input and are developing a programme that encourages all voices to be heard. I would be pleased for my officials to discuss arrangements in further detail with your office.

Yours sincerely, Minister NZIMANDE

Why attend the GEO 2023 Cape Town Ministerial Summit?

The Cape Town Summit is a unique opportunity to:

Discover solutions

In the past four years, GEO has advanced the sharing of open knowledge, enhanced coordination, and developed tools and services that respond to specific global policy challenges. In Uganda, GEO’s Global Agricultural Monitoring (GEOGLAM) initiative provided objective indicators of crop damage, helping 90,405 households avoid income loss and saving the government US $11 million in reactive food aid costs.

In Costa Rica, Mozambique and Ghana, GEO’s Global Forest Observation Initiative has provided better access to data, guidance, tools, training, leading to multimillion dollar payments for emissions reductions from the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility.

Digital Earth Africa allows policy makers and industry to access data to detect changes in water supply, crop coverage or coastline, land cover changes, and use it to make informed decisions on mitigation and adaptation. The Ghana Statistical Service applied DE Africa tools and services to observe unregulated mining activity in the Apamprama Forest Reserve, leading to forest regeneration. A report published with the World Economic Forum shows how the socioeconomic benefits of Digital Earth Africa could reach US $2 billion a year by 2024.

Discover more about these Earth observation solutions and others, as well as how they can benefit your country, at the Cape Town Summit.

Unlock action for the triple planetary crisis

Humanity faces multiple environmental, social, economic and health challenges. These challenges are daunting not only in their quantity, but also in their increasing complexity and interconnectivity. In particular, the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution has been identified as a major obstacle to sustainable development, and a significant driver of poverty, food insecurity and the spread of disease (1)

To respond, countries urgently need trusted, integrated information on the state of the Earth. As demonstrated above, Earth observations can provide this information. But despite an abundance of data sources, various factors including fragmented efforts, inequal access to data and insufficient capacity to turn EO data into information prevent their widespread adoption. For example, Earth Observation products are rarely used for national greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (2).

To unlock action on the crises we face, it is time to renew our commitment to GEO partnerships that bring together global science, technology and research to provide trusted Earth observationbased information for decision making. GEO translates and visualizes complex data into information that is understandable and freely available to all –harnessing the full power of the public and private space sectors, as well as other sources of earth observations.

Demonstrate leadership

We have a short window to prevent catastrophic impacts for nature, people and planet. As members of GEO, countries can demonstrate a tangible commitment to accelerated action, open access to data and inclusive, science-based partnership.

The Summit will provide an opportunity to highlight contributions, such as resource commitments to GEO, the provision of Earth observation data, and the development of Earth observation solutions—domestically and internationally—all on a global stage.

The Summit will include several opportunities for Ministerial interventions and a press briefing at the close. Summit communications will highlight country’s commitments through an innovative social media plan and active media engagement.

Network

GEO Week will bring together Ministers from GEO’s 114 member countries and representatives from more than 160 private sector, civil society and international organizations serving as GEO participating organizations and Associate members. It presents a unique opportunity for high level networking and discussion on the environmental and social challenges we face. As well as the programme of events, an exhibition will showcase the latest technology and solutions from across the GEO community.

In addition to the exchanges during the Summit on 10 November, South Africa will host a Ministerial Dinner on the evening of 9 November to allow for more informal discussions.

(1) Outcome report of the Stockholm+50 International Meeting https://undocs.org/Home/

(2) Satellite-based global maps are rarely used in forest reference levels submitted to the UNFCCC https:// iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/acba31