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AARSE 2006: Cairo Declaration
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| 15 March 2007 | African Association of Remote Sensing of the Environment (AARSE)
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 Delegates from 38 countries present at the 6th International AARSE Conference on Earth Observation & Geoinformation Sciences in Support of Africa's Development held in Cairo from 30th October to 2nd November 2006:
- Recognizing that accurate geospatial information (GI) is an essential pre-requisite for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG); and
- Noting the importance of space products in the attainment of the MDG and other development objectives articulated in the action plans of the World Summit on Sustainable Development and NEPAD; and
- Recognizing the successful commencement of the bi-annual African Space Leadership Forum on Space Sciences and Technology
- Recognizing the importance of Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) and noting that a number of African countries are members of Global Earth Observation (GEO).
- Noting that Nigeria, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco and South Africa have acquired their own Earth Observation (EO) satellites; and
- Recognizing the work of The African Association of Remote Sensing of the Environment (AARSE) and Environmental Information System-Africa (EIS-Africa) over the past 14 years as major points of contact and facilitators of Earth Observation and GI activities in Africa,
Hereby declare and call on African Governments:
- To promote the establishment of a secretariat for the realisation of African space programmes.
- To support African based conferences and workshops for initiating and developing appropriate solutions to the Continent's national and regional development.
- To engage actively at all levels of GEO activities and for countries to initiate programmes within their national and regional development plans in support of integrated and coordinated Earth Observations.
- To encourage national and regional centres for geoinformatics in Africa to actively engage in EO monitoring for human security and stability, and to facilitate links to international programs such as GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) and AMESD (African Monitoring for Environment and Sustainable Development).
- To strengthen and harmonize human resource development across Africa in the fields of EO and GI Sciences, by supporting organizations such as AARSE and
- EIS-Africa as well as existing and new regional training programmes at tertiary institutions.
- Strengthen coordination between different initiatives in Earth Observations and geospatial information to strengthen the impact of each initiative and the overall impact.
- To encourage the utilization and realization of the African Resources Management (ARM) constellation.
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