PUMA- Earth Observation

PUMA’ – bringing EO to the developing world

Supported under the European Commission’s European Development Fund, the PUMA project is bringing state-of-the-art Earth Observation (EO) technologies and services to African countries.
Access to reliable information on the environment is now a major priority for developing countries, facilitating early warning of natural disasters, improved food security, better health management and more efficient water and energy use.

PUMA (‘Meteorological Transition in Africa’, 2001-2005) is providing a network of 53 countries and five regional centres in Africa with equipment, training and application support, with the goal of enabling access to critical environmental data.

Speaking at the Earth Observation Partnership Conference in Brussels in October 2004, Cheick Oumar Gologo of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) explained how PUMA is bringing services provided by the powerful European weather satellite – Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) – to African national meteorological services.