Capacity Building

Capacity Building

Within the EO4SD-DRR initiative, capacity building is defined as the activities carried out to develop technical capacity in organisations and institutions within Client Sates. Communication (the means the cluster uses to communicate), communications (activities and products derived from the project) and capacity building strategy depend on the following factors:

  • Increasing exposure of EO4SD-DRR messages to target audience.
  • Creating opportunities by exposure to engage stakeholders to the project.
  • Building relationships and sustainable activities by generating tailor-made opportunities.

The main goals are to promote the uptake of Earth Observation (EO) products among IFIs and CSs and create these capacity building activities to facilitate the integration of EO-based services into disaster risk reduction organisation processes of relevant stakeholders. These must be clearly defined to guarantee the success of the cluster testing and service demonstration task for the second phase of the project.

The capacity building plan was initially established and the search of support in capacity building organisations understood as essential. Therefore, big effort was put onto:

  • Identifying events to build awareness/acceptance of EO derived information among all stakeholders in order to cooperate in activities organised by IFIs or other programs linked with Client States.
  • Proposing the provision of web based access to training and capacity building materials, including necessary on-line technical or administrative support.
  • Establishing dedicated training and capacity building organisations (figure below), including joint capacity building events in cooperation with IFI programmes being carried out in the Client States.

Identified Global, Thematic, Regional and National Opportunities for Capacity Development.

 

A communication roadmap has been strategically designed to support both the stakeholder engagement and the capacity building activities, by publicising EO4SD-DRR activities within DRR communities. To achieve its goals, world-wide events on DRR have been identified at both regional and global level. Examples of this are the Understanding Risk Forums, the Resilience Investment Planning Workshop and the Land and Poverty Conference, all celebrated in an annual basis.

The partnered global organisations working with DRR and EO have the role to divulge the information (UNITAR-UNOSAT, PrepareCenter.org) and contribute with financial support (GEF) or advice (CEOS-WGCapD). Each Bank (WB, ADB, IDB and CAF) also has very structured initiatives to facilitate the Capacity Building that the project shall make use of.

At regional and national level, there are different organisations that can support these actions. Two examples are the ACDM-AHA centre of ASEAN and the UN-ESCAP capacity development initiative in Asia or the African Risk Preparedness Centre and African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) in Africa.

Barriers for engagement achievement were identified at the beginning of the project as following: lack of interest in this specific topic, competition between EO products and standard products used by stakeholders, as well as low and slow engagement in this type of project. Agile marketing approach has been adopted, amongst others, to deal with these barriers. A mix of channels have been designed and implemented in order to engage stakeholders and maximise impact of communication actions.