2019 GEO SDG Award Winners
The GEO SDG Awards Program, led by the EO4SDG initiative, was designed to recognize institutions, organizations and countries that are applying Earth observations towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. Here are the winners for the Group on Earth Observations Sustainable Development Goals Awards 2019.
CSIRO wins the 2019 GEO SDG Award for the special category, Innovation
This award recognizes the remarkable efforts of Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO to develop methods guidance documents for indicator 15.3.1, Proportion of land that is degraded over total land area. These efforts have enabled the advancement of this indicator to a higher standing, and the development of Earth observation integrated tools to scale the use of Earth observations in support of SDG monitoring and reporting and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD)’s Land Degradation Neutrality program.
The most comprehensive link to this work is hosted on the UNCCD website describing the Indicator and its links to the SDG and LDN processes that resulted in the elevation of the Indicator to Tier 2. The full Good Practice Guidance report can be found here.
South Africa (South African National Space Agency (SANSA)) wins the 2019 GEO SDG Award for the thematic category, Testimonial/ Story.
Recognizing South Africa’s efforts to work with the National Statistics Office, the Ministry of Human Settlements, and UN-Habitat to produce Earth observation data for indicator 11.3.1 (land consumption) for South African cities while also identifying local needs which are directly tied to this indicator.
This represents a great example of multi-stakeholder engagement, which also highlights how country experiences can help better integrate local needs into the global SDG processes and shape production of more relevant methodologies and datasets.
Download the report here.
Uganda wins the 2019 GEO SDG Award for the sectoral category, Group on Earth Observation (GEO) Member Country.
Uganda has made remarkable efforts to apply Earth observation data to the development of early warnings for crop failure and to inform disaster risk financing strategies. Integrating EO into several government ministries, Uganda is setting an example for using Earth observations for better policy making.
UN Environment wins the 2019 GEO SDG Award for the sectoral category, SDG Custodian Agency.
On behalf of the GEO EO4SDG Initiative and the GEO SDG Awards Panel, it is our esteemed honor to recognize UN Environment’s remarkable efforts to integrate Earth observation data into global methodologies to enable the official monitoring and reporting of indicator 6.6.1., Change in the extent of freshwater related ecosystems over time.
Watch a relevant video here: https://youtu.be/5wfaFST28Tc
Conservation International wins the 2019 GEO SDG Award for the sectoral category, GEO Participating Organization.
Conservation International has been working to enable broader access to Earth observation data and their utilization to support informed
decision-making and SDG monitoring and reporting, via the development of Trends.Earth. The Trends.Earth system to track land cover can be explored here.
VIDEO: An Important Message You Can’t Miss
Germany (Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy Germany (BKG)) wins the 2019 GEO SDG Award for the thematic category, Statistical and Geospatial Integration.
Germany’s collaboration between BKG and the Federal Statistical Office of Germany has effectively integrated Earth observations and national geospatial datasets for calculating selected SDG indicators.
Their work addresses several SDGs including: 15.4.2, Mountain Green Cover Index, 11.7.1, Average share of the built-up area of cities that is open space for public use for all, and 15.1.1, Forest area as a percentage of total land area.
View All News
