TIGER was launched by ESA in 2002 as a direct response to a call for action in Africa stressed by the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD). The objective of the initiative was to assist African countries to overcome problems faced in the collection, analysis and use of water related geo-information by exploiting the advantages of EO technology.
Over more than 17 years of existence, the TIGER initiative has established and supported capacity building activities and development projects involving 80% of the African countries, with a total budget of more than 11 Mio euro and reaching more than 150 African water authorities and research institutes. The initiative was run under an African leadership, in close collaboration with key international partners (AUC, UNESCO, UNECA) and regional offices (RCMRD, AGRYMET, OSS, SANSA…)
TIGER R&D and Pre-Operational projects aimed to develop EO services in collaboration with African stakeholders and to transfer them to mandated water authorities for operations under their leadership. Such projects were implemented through R&D activities, capacity building and local adaptations of EO services and information systems.
Results from the scientific exploitation of EO data in support to water research issues have been disseminated through Workshops and Symposia and publications on Scientific literature. A TIGER Training Kit was also developed to contribute to the creation of EO-knowledge in Africa.
In addition, to support an African Earth Observation capacity for Water Resource Monitoring, an open-source Water Observation and Information System (WOIS) was developed in close collaboration with several African transboundary and national water authorities, which provided input on the specifications, tested and demonstrated the use of the WOIS.
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