III. Lessons from "Best Practices" in space applications for poverty alleviation
17. "Best practices" and success stories worldwide, especially
in developing countries, have been studied to identify those
applications vis-ā-vis strategies that worked successfully
in addressing various dimensions of poverty. Policy issues,
institutional frameworks and contextual dynamics have been
analysed. Finally, those issues in which ESCAP could help
enable its member and associate member countries by assisting
to guide their policies, catalysing regional/sub-regional
cooperative mechanisms, and promoting certain replicable
models have been summarized below.
A. Satellite Communications (SatCom): Alleviating
the Digital Divide and Poverty.
18. Among the factors possibly correlating highly with
poverty, the digital divide has arguably been the most significant
in the Asia-Pacific region. Rural, dry land and isolated
areas, having a high incidence of poverty, are digitally
marginalized. Investments in building the terrestrial infrastructures,
especially in these areas, may not be cost-effective or
easy to prioritize for capital investment when faced with
other core priorities such as the opening of schools and
hospitals, the building of rural infrastructures - roads,
irrigation networks, bridges and the like - which contribute
significantly to poverty reduction and are easier for traditional
development planners to visualize. In such digitally marginalized
areas with high incidence of poverty, space-based ICT services
have assumed considerable significance, in terms of providing
connectivity to phone, email and Internet services, and
more importantly, the opportunity it brings for large-scale
empowerment, knowledge and better governance, and connectivity
to markets - especially in the era of an integrated global
economy.
19. SatCom, making the transitions to broadband, digital
and convergence, provides enhanced opportunities for enabling
and diversifying broadband access. It has also demonstrated
the potential to bridge the digital and knowledge divides,
and reach out and benefit the poor, if used innovatively.
There are different measures to achieve satellite broadband
applications and services. Other than expected affordable
two-way broadband connectivity via satellite in coming years,
one-way broadband broadcasting by satellite has contributed
greatly to distance education programmes in China and Thailand
for years. There are many commercial modals for asymmetric
satellite broadband access: two-way access through satellite,
and externally interactive Internet access through satellite
broadband downlink and ordinary dial-up Internet uplink.
Service practices have demonstrated their technical availability
and economic affordability. The combination with local wireless
connectivity (Wi-Fi) will further enhance the affordability
of broadband for delivering alleviation-oriented ICT applications
to remote and underserved areas.
20. Though this service has not been generally available
in the Asia-Pacific region, timely development of enabling
policies and viable institutional modals may be appropriate
for developing countries in the region. Whereas satellite-based
VSAT-WLL services offer cost-effective and appropriate community-level
solutions by offering a variety of the services in some
areas, it seems that triggering large-scale operationalization
will be possible only by soon-to-be-available mainstreaming
of satellite broadband services. Satellite broadband-based
multi-purpose proof-of-concept studies - marrying "accessibility",
"affordability", "usefulness" and "poor people centric approach"
in the context of poverty alleviation - are of great value
for prototyping operations. Prototype studies are required
to (a) assess operational viability, (b) refine aspects
of different models of operationalization, such as the business
model, revenue sharing (between government and community)
models and so forth, (c) develop partnerships among different
players - satellite operators, service providers, government,
application service industry, NGOs, international organizations
- including funding agencies and multinational companies,
and d) develop sustainable service mechanisms viable both
to least developed countries and to commercial service providers.
1. Changing the Face of Distance Education
through SatCom
21. The emergence of the concept of the knowledge society
in the globalized economy brings more focus on education,
knowledge and skills - since these are increasingly strong
prerequisites to improved economic opportunities and poverty
alleviation. Satellite-based distance education (DE) promotes
formal and informal education and knowledge dissemination
in more than 40 developing countries - including the least
developed, heavily indebted and island nations. International
agencies, including funding agencies like the World Bank,
have promoted DE as a strategy for poverty reduction. It
is important to strengthen the institution of DE with enhanced
capacity and outreach. The institutions of DE, however,
today are at the crossroads. The changing composition of
traditional allies in the education sector, the emergence
of virtual learning institutions, and a lack of clarity
on policy are affecting the potential roles that DE could
play in poverty alleviation. The latest trends emerging
in DE include convergence with the Internet, two-way broadband
communication, and globalization (with different cross-country
variations), seem to be driven more by technology and market
forces, rather than its traditional focus on poverty alleviation,
particularly in rural areas. While the success stories of
China, Thailand and other countries (Annex II) provide some
insights on possible policies and strategic partnerships,
there are challenges remaining, such as the issues of idealism
vs realism, and market forces vs government desires for
empowering the poor with knowledge. The process of institutionalized
DE services needs to be harmonized with societal obligations
by promoting the content and curriculum of education that
could benefit the poor and marginalized.
22. The development and the applications of information,
communication and space technology have greatly reduced
the cost of satellite-delivered distance education programmes
to vast territories. The role of SatCom in distance education
programmes has been critical in recent years. The phenomenal
advance in SatCom technologies and applications, and the
increase in the number of satellite resources, has created
ample scope for additional capacity in handling information.
This increased capacity could be put to use for enhancing
DE-based services in pockets of poverty and marginalization.
There is a need to examine the scope for increasing benefits,
and for possible additional capacities from satellite communications
providers. Sharing additional capacities to strengthen DE
initiatives in those developing countries that are constrained
by the current lack of such infrastructure would strengthen
DE-related activities. In this context, the following steps
could be visualized:
To make an inventory of satellite resources available with
the various public/private agencies with the aim of strengthening
DE activities. Evaluate the possible benefits from helping
least developed countries (LDCs) by providing or sharing
DE-related uplink facilities - even beyond their geographical
boundaries. For example, in the case of C band, the uplink
fee is quite high and requires outside support, especially
for LDCs. Such support could be mobilized within the framework
of regional/sub-regional cooperation.
- To enhance consensus and support mechanisms towards
sharing satellite resources for initiating local pilot
projects focused on poverty alleviation in least developing
countries within a framework of regional/sub-regional
cooperation. For example, South Asia - home to the largest
numbers of poor and illiterate people needs a more effective
DE infrastructure, and extending the footprint of India's
communications satellite system beyond its national boundary
would be a possible option to the framework. Similarly,
the outreach of China's communications satellite to Central
and East Asia could strengthen DE networks in those countries.
The scope for building such regional/sub-regional cooperative
frameworks on mutually agreed terms and conditions offers
potential benefits to many countries.
- To explore the possibility of involving private agencies
within a framework of sustainable cooperation. SatCom
has primarily been the domain of commercial agencies.
In some countries like Thailand, DE has been quite effective
on the basis of public-private (Thaicom) partnership.
This model sets a replicable example if other institutional
and contextual factors are addressed.
- WorldSpace, for example, a direct-to-receiver satellite
audio service provider at global level, delivers digital
audio and multimedia programming directly to listeners
using portable receivers. The AsiaStar satellite of WorldSpace
has footprints covering almost the whole region. The role
of WorldSpace has been particularly significant in serving
those countries or regions where there is inadequate or
virtually no terrestrial ICT infrastructure. Digital audio
and multimedia could be tailored to address educational
needs also. There is considerable potential to dovetail
the business model of WorldSpace with policy/cooperative
frameworks to support education, especially in least developed/island
countries.
23. The need for education, especially in the context of
poverty alleviation, is often focused on skill building,
entrepreneurship, continuous training and extension of services.
The local-level contextual knowledge and involvement of
stakeholders are equally important. While VSAT and VSAT
WLL provided the prototype for multi-purpose community teleservice
centres (CTCs) focusing on local education, broadband satellite-based
CTCs also hold great promise in the context of DE. It is
essential to advocate suitable framework options and DE
models to help countries develop suitable policies, choice
of technical solutions, and frameworks of institutional
partnerships, especially in the context of spelling out
the relationship between DE agencies and open universities.
Lessons from successful DE models in developing countries
have demonstrated that education and skill development programs
supported by space technology are likely to be much more
scalable and cheaper than brick-and-mortar models, if the
issues related to policies and institutional mechanisms
are appropriately addressed. This belief was echoed in the
comments of the participants in Asian Consultations, organized
in the run-up to the Working Group meeting of the ICT Advisors
to the United Nations Secretary General: "Literacy is the
key - can we make our world literate in five years using
ICT?"
2. Tele-Health: Providing Health Care to
the Rural Poor
24. The health divide, between and within developing countries,
is even worse than the digital, income and knowledge divides.
Most of the health related infrastructure - including specialist
doctors, other health workers, hospitals and primary health
care centres are concentrated in urban areas, while rural
and remote areas are underserved and sometimes left out.
Unless there are powerful interventions to address this
divide, the poor and malnourished of the developing countries
will continue to be deprived the basic human entitlement
- health.
25. While the use of broadband Internet has made a difference,
the effect may currently be more in terms of attracting
more people to leading medical institutions with Web sites,
enriching doctors and other health workers. Many poor living
in medically underserved areas that have not been reached
have yet to gain any benefit from the advances. Health workers,
especially those working in rural areas, lack regular training,
and there is little mentoring/coaching by colleagues exposed
to a greater variety of cases and new methods (this, mostly
in major urban health centres), which would help to update
of their knowledge and extension activities. Diseases like
HIV are known to the rural masses, though advanced and affordable
treatment options may be lacking.
26. Tele-medicine embodies the convergence of information
technology and communications towards medical applications.
Tele-medicine is similar to distance learning, but requires
higher bandwidth for the real time bi-directional transmission
of video and higher-resolution images/data, particularly
from patient (in rural, remote and inaccessible areas) to
doctor (metro/cities/urban areas). SatCom provides, or transcends,
the "last mile" of the communications network, and has demonstrated
its operational capability and viability to benefit the
poor and marginalized in several countries. It also enables
extension and training services to health workers in rural
and otherwise inaccessible areas. Often an optimal strategy
has included use of a hybrid network - combining SatCom
and terrestrial infrastructure, enabling multiple access
and outreach.
27. Satellite-based tele-medicine is more a subject of
cooperation and strategic partnership than the technology
per se. Most of the success stories have demonstrated the
vitality of cooperation and partnership that work for the
success of a tele-medicine project. There are quite a few
joint cooperative networks, involving space agencies and
local health institutions, including NGOs, as well as national
tele-medicine networks, which are scalable and could be
expanded further to benefit the larger cross-section of
the poor in developing countries.
3. Broadband Satellite-based Multi-purpose
Community Teleservice Centres (CTCs): Reaching out to the
Poor and Marginalized
28. Many of the resources and services for the poor are
practicable only at the community level - not at the individual
level. In this regard, multi-purpose community teleservice
centres (CTCs) have emerged as an integral part of a cross-sectoral
and multi-disciplinary enterprise. Most multi-purpose CTCs
have a terrestrial telecommunications backbone; some are
based on VSATs, and even VSAT-WLL systems. There are several
technological, scalability, policy and institutional issues,
which have been constraining the large-scale operationalization
of CTCs. The success of multi-purpose CTCs in developing
countries, including some LDCs, has been driven primarily
by "partnership" efforts involving the concerned national
governments, international organizations, private service
providers, and, most importantly, the community leaders.
A careful mix of technology, institutional arrangements
and policy framework improves the chance of success of a
CTC.
29. By virtue of its scalability and its independence from
inadequate terrestrial infrastructure and geographical barriers,
mainstream satellite broadband systems have considerable
potential for bringing CTCs to underserved areas. With appropriate
facilities, such CTCs can be significant assets in poverty
alleviation. Unlike VSATs and VSAT-WLL (because of their
greater cost/performance), the wide area coverage of broadband
provided via satellite located in geostationary orbit is
a natural technical-economic alternative for establishing
CTCs. In fact, for many people in underserved areas of developing
countries who need to access broadband ICT services, satellite
is not simply a choice, it will be the only choice. As satellite
broadband is also useful for distance education and tele-medicine
in the rural and remote areas, such possibilities should
be included in the design of multi-purpose CTCs. In new
development paradigms, when focus is increasingly being
placed on stakeholders' participation in decision-making
as well as governance, community-owned multi-purpose CTCs
have significant potential to emerge as micro-level enterprises.
30. To operationalize the concept of community-owned multi-purpose
CTCs to work for the poor, one current need is to craft
a replicable "business" model. It is therefore important
to evolve an operationally feasible business model for multi-purpose
CTCs addressing poverty alleviation. The word "business"
is important not from the sustainability point of view alone,
but also to address the business interest of broadband service
providers, who are mostly private space agencies, telecom
operators, and the like. This is where a need for detailed
reports on quasi-operational prototype broadband-based multi-purpose
CTCs.
4. A suggested conceptual framework
31. Broadband satellite-based specialty or multi-purpose
CTCs have a clear potential to emerge as one-stop multi-purpose
service providers for bridging digital, knowledge and health
divides in underserved areas. Blending satellite and terrestrial
networks, multi-purpose CTCs can enable "accessible", "affordable"
and "useful" services to empower the poor with knowledge,
responsive governance and entrepreneurship (Figure 3). Many
visionaries believe that multi-purpose CTCs could emerge
as viable grassroots-level enterprises, managed by stakeholders
themselves, to connect their activities with the forces
of globalization - transcending many current barriers. However,
quasi-operational prototype development would still benefit
the CTC operationalization process, to better understand
the operational framework of such multi-purpose CTCs under
the complex settings wherein poverty and deprivation continue
to exist. The ultimate success of CTCs will depend on support
from local community leaders, interfacing with multi-agency
consortia - involving education, health and empowerment/welfare
sectors both in public and in private domains, and strategic
alliances with broadband SatCom service providers. Promoting
broadband satellite-based CTCs would eventually lead to
great benefits for areas and peoples currently isolated,
or at least partially underserved, from the global economy.
Figure 3. A multi-purpose CTC - community-owned
space-based ICT enterprise: perspective objectives
B. Remote Sensing and GIS Technologies:
Natural Resources Management for Poverty Alleviation:
32. Arguably the largest percentages of the poor work in
agriculture and fisheries (including small and marginal
farms, fishermen, and landless/assetless agricultural labourers).
Many women depend on such natural resources for their livelihoods
and marketable surplus. Human and ecological poverty have
been found to exist together in developing countries. The
World Summit on Sustainable Development has provided a framework
for managing natural resources based on the ecosystem approach
through community participation and empowerment of the stakeholders,
and "green governance". The tasks of reconfiguring management
of natural resources to benefit the poor, breaking the environment-poverty
nexus, operationalizing the WSSD framework are information-intensive
and knowledge-based.
33. The use of remote sensing and GIS has been operationally
demonstrated by several developing countries to support
informed decision-making and policy formulation for sustainable
development, to serve as decision-support tools for effective
and efficient environment, natural resources and disaster
management, and to support national poverty alleviation
strategies and their implementation. In recent years, remote
sensing and GIS have been used to put into context the ecosystem
approach towards policy formulation and planning, working
out suitable interventions and implementation mechanisms
- including impact assessment, and supporting directly the
cause of livelihoods for poor fishermen and farmers (Annex
III).
34. The use of remote sensing and GIS, as information support
to "green" governance efforts and implementation of international
protocols and conventions, holds considerable promise and
has already been demonstrated through success stories in
some countries of the region. Promoting large-scale operationalization
of remote sensing and GIS in the region, by government,
private agencies, NGOs and at community/stakeholder levels,
therefore, is of great significance. Unlike SatCom that
is going to be used on a personal level, most current remote
sensing and GIS users are still institutions and organizations
in the governmental and public service domains, which are
major players in promoting poverty alleviation initiatives
and actions. Towards this, the focus must be placed on the
generation of demand-driven and value-added services with
focus on poverty alleviation, and on easier access to poverty-alleviation-related
services. Five factors that are to be taken into account
include affordability, accessibility, availability, timeliness
and user awareness.
35. The operational use of remote sensing and GIS is often
put into the context of addressing natural resources development.
However, it is essential to understand the exact needs for
information, so that it can be useful at all levels. The
use of remote sensing and GIS must become participatory
in nature, involving all stakeholders. A way of bringing
together all stakeholders is through pilot or demonstration
projects. The results of such projects are more likely to
be accepted if a "bottom-up" approach is followed. The involvement
of non-governmental organizations helps in integrating grassroots-level
concerns (Figure 4). As an input to policy, planning and
targeted interventions, which contribute more in terms of
social and environmental gains than benefits in terms of
money, the cost-benefit analysis of remote sensing and GIS,
like many other societal projects, is not an exact science,
and currently lacks consistency. On the benefits of using
remote sensing and GIS, the majority views are that maximum
benefits can be realized only when the technology is fully
operational. (What constitutes "fully operational" is not
fully agreed upon. Some specialists merely advocate better
standardization of procedures and reporting. Others advocate
very broad-based use, which might only come from a proliferation
of popularized, free or low-cost, remotely sensed and thematic
data plus image processing and GIS software. In short, what
VisiCalc did for spreadsheets and dBase did for database
management systems, some future popularized software must
do for remote sensing and GIS.) Several case studies argue
that the remote sensing approach appears to be economical
in terms of cost savings in mapping, traversing, opportunity
costs and so forth, and that the approach is quick compared
to conventional methods. There is considerable potential
for increasing economic returns (which are usually indirect)
as well as enhancing the natural resources base as a greater
range of applications become more common.
Figure 4. Use of remote sensing and GIS
for sustainable development involving stakeholders, in the
format suggested by WSSD.
36. The use of remote sensing and GIS involves considerable
expertise, plus institutional mechanisms to deliver services
and products to the end users. Among other capacity-building
mechanisms, specialized training and institutional partnerships
holds significant potential. Considering the need for specialized
training in remote sensing and GIS for poverty alleviation,
it is important to promote specialized training modules
and dissemination of best practices. Along with the development
and convergence of information and communication technology,
it is becoming clear that the service industry in remote
sensing and GIS could be stimulated by providing user services
through the Internet to user communities at lower level
government and public service institutions and private organizations,
including those in remote areas. Some form of such services
is emerging, at least in terms of using the Internet to
contact service bureaus. However, such services may not
yet be optimizing the use of Internet mapping, and (perhaps
partly because of this) they tend to be expensive.
37. Subsequent to the Millennium Summit and WSSD, there
is a mobilized political will and visible willingness to
pursue sustainable development, at least in some quarters,
with a focus on poverty alleviation and natural resources
management based on an ecosystem approach. It is timely
to advocate the role of remote sensing and GIS in developing
policy frameworks, implementing them, and directly supporting
the cause of building livelihoods for poor fishermen and
farmers.
1. "Poverty Mapping" and Targeting the Poor:
The Role of Remote Sensing and GIS
38. "Poverty maps" are important tools for supporting greater
understanding of trends affecting poverty, for targeted
interventions, and for monitoring the success of poverty
alleviation programmes. Most developing countries, however,
do not have analytical spatial data showing the distribution
of their poor, as a way to support their policies and programmes.
They often lack institutional mechanisms to produce poverty
maps as per their contextual needs to support more sophisticated
approaches to the problems of poverty. Most hardcopy maps
in some countries, generated as a part of ongoing activities
(but not necessarily yet of comprehensive multi-institutional,
multi-stakeholder-oriented programmes), are supported by
international agencies. There are several operational constraints
related to producing poverty maps. The task requires the
synthesis of large data sets from different sources having
incompatible formats, standards, scales and other elements.
In many cases in developing countries, gaps in data/information
have been significant constraints. Yet another issue is
the scale or resolution of spatially disaggregated maps
to capture the expected heterogeneity addressing the dynamics
of poverty and deprivation at the desired level. A fine
resolution or a scale too detailed increases the cost of
compiling, managing, and analysing the data, while small-scale
maps do not capture the heterogeneity.
39. Remote sensing and GIS contribute immensely to poverty
mapping. For example, poverty estimates are derived based
on household variables; GIS aids spatial attributes; remote
sensing integrates spatially the information on land use/land
cover, natural resources endowment and quality of environment.
Such value addition leads to creation of geographically
disaggregated poverty profiles - indicating the impacts
on the state of poverty, natural resources and environment
over time (Figure 5). Technically, it is the use of remote
sensing and GIS that drives the operationalization of disaggregated
poverty mapping, enabled them to establish their operational
reliance and expand their outreach in the diverse areas
related to targeting the poor, their physical and natural
attributes as well as the impacts of various policies and
interventions in developing countries (Annex IV). Taking
into account typical issues in the region related to poverty,
marginalization and environmental degradation, some applications
of disaggregated poverty mapping are of significance:
- Identifying and targeting the spatial distribution
of the poor over major farming systems, agro-ecological
zones, or different natural endowments (feasibility requires
a global or semi-global sub-national poverty map, or appropriate
individual country data).
- Developing insights into the extent to which natural
endowments determine people's choice of production system
(land use system) and how this in turn affects their income
levels, and on the other hand, the extent to which people's
land use choices result in negative environmental effects,
which in turn generate private or social costs (feasibility
requires spatial data sets that will permit estimation).
- Demonstrating the use of geographically disaggregated
poverty profiles to examine the impact of increasing demographic
pressure in the different agro-ecological zones and to
understand the dynamics of pockets of poverty and deprivation
vis-ā-vis environmental hotspots.
Figure 5. Role of remote
sensing and GIS in constructing poverty maps.
40. Institutional capacity-building, in terms of remote
sensing, GIS and modelling-related infrastructure and know-how,
is vital. Specialized training (preferably with continuous
access to coaching and other support) is valuable especially
for those vulnerable countries/regions that do not have
fully sustainable resources and institutional mechanisms
as well as trained personnel and the overall expertise.
2. Natural Disaster Reduction, Poverty Alleviation
and Space Applications
41. The people of Asia and the Pacific, experiencing almost
every conceivable hazard, have been living with the highest
degree of vulnerability and risks to their lives and property.
The largest segments of populations at risk from many types
of disasters are often the poor and marginalized. While
a close link between hazard vulnerability and poverty seems
evident, policies and programmes related to disaster management
and poverty alleviation are still not in harmony with one
another in many countries. A new paradigm, however, has
started, by moving the focus on disaster management away
from relief and response to risk management and vulnerability
reduction. Putting this into the operational context is
possible only if there is comprehensive and detailed information
about the risks associated with the people, the different
types of vulnerability - socio-economic, terrain and climatic,
for instance - and related policies. The new focus that
places more emphasis on community-based, bottom-up approaches
is bringing the overall approach of disaster management
closer to poverty alleviation, and this trend needs to be
encouraged worldwide. However, the institutions at various
levels responsible for disaster management are not yet empowered
with appropriate tools and techniques to pursue such efforts.
There are serious institutional inadequacies, which constrain
the ability to put scientific information into operational
use, thus widening the gaps between the institutional goals
and their impact down the line to the people affected by
disasters. Private space industries are also now supporting
disaster management efforts, but there is a need for institutionalized
partnership within the framework of cooperation and affordable
business models, which may benefit the larger cross-section
of the disaster-affected population in the region.
42. Meteorological satellites have made great contributions
towards forecasting extreme weather hazards - tropical cyclone,
severe storms and flash flooding. The real breakthrough,
in the recent years, has been the prediction of El Niņo.
The local institutions, if strengthened to translate the
generic weather information into valuable decision support
at the local level, would be of immense value in disaster
preparedness. Use of remote sensing and GIS has touched
upon almost all the issues pertaining to disaster mitigation
(vulnerability analysis and risk assessment), disaster preparedness
(creation of GIS databases and development of decision support),
and disaster relief (rapid mapping and damage assessment).
Use of low-cost emergency communication capability, although
it has demonstrated operational reliance, depends upon partnership
and cooperation, and the trends indicate an increasing role
for private service providers in terms of operating a state-of-the-art
communications backbone during the crisis period.
43. "Best practices" have been found in (a) the conjunctive
use of SatCom, remote sensing, GIS and GPS, in an institutionalized
framework with multi-sectoral linkages, (b) identification
of the regions having the highest amount of risk - emanating
from multiple hazards - and also the safest zones, to aid
policy formulation for disaster reduction, and (c) the use
of remote sensing for rapid mapping of disaster event and
a SatCom network to disseminate the information to the end-users
on a real-time basis.
44. Although there are quite a few international/regional
efforts - including the several United Nations initiatives
that could be further strengthened to cover more regions
- the International Charter on space and major disasters
provides a unique example of a cooperative framework to
address disaster management needs, one that involves all
the major space agencies. The Charter could be tailored
further to address the specific needs in the region - taking
into account its unique vulnerability. Establishment of
regional/sub-regional networks for early warning systems
for floods, drought and landslides - taking into consideration
the common features of the river basins, agro-ecological
zones and topography - provides the scope and opportunity
for a regional/sub-regional cooperative framework. In tune
with the new paradigms on disaster management, which place
their focus on community empowerment and stakeholders' participation,
the use of detailed maps based on remote sensing and GIS
provides the links between community-based disaster preparedness
and an ecosystems approach.
45. Capacity-building in space applications for disaster
management involves not only training and institutional
partnerships, but also commonly agreed basic products and
services from various remote sensing satellite missions.
It is impossible for any single disaster management authority
to deal with the diversity of satellite images. It is an
urgent necessity for space agencies, service providers and
disaster management authorities jointly to develop some
form of guidance for space information products and services,
which would support national disaster management efforts
through regional cooperative mechanisms to be developed
in the region in the coming years. 3. A suggested conceptual
framework.
46. Remote sensing and GIS applications have been used
in risk assessment for disaster management, and to interface
between various sectors active in natural resources management,
including aspects that target the poor and marginalized.
These tools thus help to harmonize community-based disaster
management systems, poverty alleviation efforts and ecosystem
approaches (Figure 6). The tools add perspectives that help
managers synergize policies and programmes for poverty alleviation,
disaster management and environmentally sound sustainable
development. It is important to promote such concepts -
by advocacy of enabling policies among the member/associate
member countries, by conducting proof-of-concept experiments,
and by establishing regional/sub-regional cooperative frameworks
to pursue such agendas.
Figure 6. Ecosystem approach: a context
for poverty alleviation, sustainable development and environmental
protection.
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