Urgent and critical need for developing countries to invest in Earth observation-based agricultural early warning and monitoring systems to achieve Zero Hunger (SDG-2)

Abstract:

Weather and climate impacts are likely to worsen as climate change progresses, thereby exacerbating vulnerabilities in most developing countries. Extreme weather events such as floods, landslides, droughts, and cyclones are common occurrence worldwide. Teleconnections show that large scale events in one region can have significant impacts in other regions. 2019 was a year of extremes in sub-Saharan African (SSA), with COVID-19, 2020 has proved even more challenging impacting every industry and the most vulnerable the most. The majority of the countries in SSA do not have operational early warning systems and often react to extreme events, even to slow creeping droughts. Satellite Earth Observations (EO) already offer tools to provide life-saving early warning information and developing countries should invest in leveraging existing technologies, data, and tools to make leaps in monitoring, early warning, and responding to future events and more so in tracking and measuring impacts and progress. To protect lives from COVID-19, multiple countries imposed shutdowns and curfews. However, large data and information gaps left the same governments grappling with the questions on food accessibility and availability for many of their citizens. This presentation will summarize our efforts to assess the impacts of DL and COVID-19 on food security (food availability and access) impacting SDG2 following requests and working with partner organizations in SSA with examples from Togo and Kenya.