On March 4, UNITAR, representing the EO4SD-Fragility, conflict and security consortium, met with representatives from the World Bank.
The topic was a possible collaboration between our consortium and the World Bank’s GEMS initiative. The meeting raised awareness of the power and ability of satellite earth observation to support project supervision and implementation in countries affected by fragility.
Participants at the meeting. Credit: GEMS
Exchanges between the two teams enabled further exploration of relevant areas of complementary activities. While our consortium focuses on the usefulness of satellites and related space technologies, the GEMS initiative is centered around the technological solutions that can be put in the hands of people working on projects in the field. Both approaches can work in tandem to improve and enhance the monitoring and evaluation capacities of organizations and people working with and within countries affected by fragility. Discussions also touched upon capacity building initiatives and the consortium’s online course on the use of geographic information technologies in fragile contexts made available earlier this year.
The Geo-Enabling initiative for Monitoring and Supervision (GEMS) is an initiative designed to enhance monitoring, evaluation and supervision in countries affected by fragility, conflict and/or violence. Its focus is on building capacity to use relevant technologies to collect and analyze data on the ground among their clients, partners and World bank teams. This increased capacity improves accountability for third-party monitoring and enhances transparency and accuracy of monitoring and evaluation activities. In addition to this, GEMS provides platforms for remote supervision, real-time safeguards monitoring, and portfolio mapping for coordination across projects and partners.
