Local Capacity Building, Skills and Growth

The partnership between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the World Bank places a strong emphasis on capacity building. Capacity building is defined by the UN as the process of developing and strengthening the skills, instincts, abilities, processes and resources that organizations and communities need to survive, adapt, and thrive in a fast-changing world.

Within Europe, ESA and the European Commission have invested significant efforts over the last two to three decades in developing a highly skilled Earth Observation service sector that can address the global development challenges we face today and in the future. So, now is a good time to leverage and transfer these skills to developing country counterparts in order to make development more sustainable on the ground. Integrated in operational International Financial Institution (IFI) frameworks and client country dialogues, this ideally stimulates development of an EO service sector in those countries themselves, leading to multiplier effects and growth of local digital economies.

Part of this capacity-building process includes technical capacity, such as hardware, software, tools, and data. For example, EO4SD-marine capacity development efforts have supported ongoing efforts of ESA’s IFI partners and their client states (CS) to develop the expertise required to access, analyse, and interpret marine and coastal satellite data in various contexts.