ISRSE-39 Discussion Forum: “SDGs, midway to 2030”

Attend the SDG discussion forum at the 39^th International Symposium on Remote Sensing of Environment (ISRSE-39) at Hall A, Tuesday 25^th April 11:00 – 12:30 (90 min)

Background

The 2030 Agenda on sustainable development represents a major milestone towards data-driven and evidence-based development policies. Mainstreaming technical innovation to fill data gaps and mobilizing the data revolution to overcome inequalities between data-poor and data-rich countries are high priorities. With the recognition that data is at the heart of the SDGs comes the reality that the least developed countries have the most difficulty with the related institutional and technical challenges. Since the adoption of the 2030 Agenda on sustainable development in 2015, geospatial Information and Earth Observations were presented as game-changers for countries to fully achieve their sustainable development goals.

With the SDG agenda reaching its midway towards the 2030 milestone, the aim of the Discussion Forum is to review progress on the uptake of EO in SDG processes and discuss the opportunities and challenges still lying ahead for successfully integrating EO technology within the national monitoring and reporting systems on SDGs.

Organizers

Marc Paganini European Space Agency (ESA)
Argyro Kavvada National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Lawrence Friedl National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Objectives

The participants to the Forum will discuss the achievements and challenges of mainstreaming EO into the SDG processes and systems, which can be scientific, technical, programmatic, or policy-based in nature.

The objective of forum is to to take stock of the results achieved so far and to strengthen further the importance to join efforts to offer robust and cost-effective solutions that help countries better achieve their sustainable development goals, monitor progress towards their targets, inform development policies and ensure accountability and transparency.

Organization of the Forum

The overall duration of the forum is 90 min.

The Forum will be moderated by Christoph Aubrecht (ESA) and Lawrence Friedl (NASA) who will introduce the session.

The Forum will consist in a succession of short videos (4 to 5 minutes) from various SDG stakeholders (11 in total), who will give their views on what has been achieved and what are the key priorities to advance further the uptake of geospatial information and Earth Observations in national processes and systems on SDGs. The video testimonies will be followed by a panel discussion with a few experts (3 in total) who will be invited to react to the messages conveyed by the videos and discuss how the potential of Earth Observations and digital technologies have been harnessed to serve the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development and leave no country behind, and what is still needed to fully exploit the value of Earth Observations and accelerate delivery and impact of EO-based solutions.

The key questions asked for the video testimonials are:

- Can you give us key areas within your domain, where the uptake of Geospatial Information and Earth Observation in the SDG processes has been a success ?
- What is still lacking to fully harness the potential of Earth Observations to achieve the level of ambition of the 2030 Agenda on sustainable development?
- What are the main actions that the EO community should undertake to strengthen the capacities of countries to integrate EO in their national processes and systems on SDGs.
- What is the “one key thing” that the EO community needs to address in the coming years to meet the 2030 goals?

Program

(5 min) Introduction to the session by the session chairs

(50 min) Video Testimonials (11 in total)

(30 min) Discussion Panel with experts (3 panelists)

(5 min) Session wrap up by the session chairs

Moderators

Lawrence Friedl (NASA Director of Applied Sciences Program, GEO EO4SDG co-chair)

Christoph Aubrecht (ESA Global Development Assistance (GDA) Programme Coordinator)

Panelists

3 panelists will provide their views on what has been achieved and what are the key priorities to advance further the uptake of Earth Observations in national processes and systems on SDGs. For this they will react to the video testimonies that will be played prior to the panel discussions.

The 3 panelists are: