African Union Scholarship for GMES & Africa Second Continental Forum 2021

The African Union has kindly agreed to sponsor 10 African SGAC members to attend the GMES & Africa Second Continental Forum on 6-10 December 2021 in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. The African Union is providing funds that will aim to partially cover the round trip travel costs via economy airfare, accommodation, visa costs and possible covid tests. The award will be managed directly by the African Union.

Background 

GMES & Africa has been delivering on its Pan African mandate of strengthening the capacities of African institutions with the required resources for access to and exploitation of Earth Observation-based services, particularly in the Water and Natural Resources, and Marine and Coastal Areas domains. This is in line with the AU Agenda 2063 and the African Space Policy and Strategy that advocate for the promotion of environmentally sustainable and climate resilient economies and communities through sustainable production and consumption patterns, water security, natural disaster preparedness and prevention, and renewable energy.

The GMES & Africa initiative has been providing information to key stakeholders including policy makers, scientists, businesses, academia and end users, through consortia of institutions implementing EO services and natural resource management projects across the five regions of Africa. The programme has been a major avenue for crystalizing continental EO services as proclaimed under the African Space Policy and Strategy, and availing EO data and facilities to African institutions through the EU Copernicus service. Impactful results have been generated across the four pillars of Data and Infrastructure, Service Development, Education and Training, and Outreach and Awareness Raising. In its role of fostering collaboration and engagement within the African EO sector, the programme has indicative actions and milestones including two Continental Forums, which provide discursive platforms for EO service providers and end users to exchange views and share ideas. The second and last continental Forum of the first phase of GMES & Africa is scheduled from 6th to 10th December in Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire).

The 2nd GMES & Africa Forum will be centered on the theme Earth Observation: Powering Environmental Sustainability and Socio-economic Growth in Africa. The theme is reflective of the overarching mandate of GMES and Africa, including the utilization of EO services and applications to foster environmental and long-term natural resource management for human development.

How to Apply

Applicants will submit their applications via the scholarship submission form below. 

Application questions: 

• Please describe your background and experience in Earth Observation, remote sensing and GIS (300 words) 
• Please describe why you want to attend this event and represent SGAC (300 words)
• What do you intend to take out of this conference and implement back to your community or workplace? (200 words) 

Guidelines

Eligibility

1. The scholarship is open to all students and young professionals whose country of residence is in Africa or are a citizen of an African country. Participants must be SGAC members (registered on the SGAC website) between the age of 18 and 35 years as of the 26th of November 2021.
2. To be eligible, applicants should have had at least some past contributions to SGAC, as volunteers, or attending SGAC events.
   • Examples of contributions include: attending SGAC events, being a member of an SGAC event team, working with SGAC project groups or being a member of the SGAC team including RCs, NPoCs, Executive Office.
3. Scholarship judges are ineligible for the award.

Submission

1. The language of all submissions must be in English.
2. Applicants will submit their application through the Scholarship form.
3. All submissions must be made by the 1st November 2021, 23:59 GMT. Any submissions after the deadline will not be considered.

Scholarship Details 

1. The award will be managed directly by the African Union.  
2.  Applicants are advised to not engage in any expenses until they have formal confirmation that the scholarship has been awarded. The SGAC is not liable for any expenses incurred by applicants in any case where competition is not awarded, or in excess of the value of the awarded grant.
3. Due to the ever-changing nature of international travel and restrictions, SGAC strongly encourages you to purchase insurance coverage to cover your travel expenses.
4. In the interest of spreading opportunities to more members, SGAC reserves the right to prioritise applicants who have not recently received another SGAC scholarship of a similar nature. This is defined as having received a travel grant in the past 2 years, in the same category (either international or regional/national) as this posted award. international awards include scholarships for international events such as SGC/IAC, SGFF and Space Symposium, while regional/national awards refer to events, such as the Space Generation Workshops (SGW), national space generation events (SG[country]) or other regional or national conferences.

Copyright and Intellectual Property

By submitting an entry, applicants agree to permit SGAC to mention their names, affiliations, and headshot picture in connection with the scholarship.

Liability

1. SGAC shall not be responsible in the event that the AfricaGIS 2021 event is cancelled. SGAC will not reimburse the award winner, even if he/she has already incurred expenses.
2. SGAC shall not be responsible in the event that the award winner fails to attend the Africa GIS 2021; in that case the award offer shall become void.
3. SGAC shall not be responsible in the event that the award winner cannot obtain any necessary travel documents; if they are required but not obtained, the award offer shall become void.
4. The award is not transferable to another event or individual.
5. The award will be managed directly by the African Union. SGAC will not be held responsible for the awarding of funding.

Evaluation

The assessment of applications for the African Union Scholarship will be evaluated by a panel of SGAC Chairs, Executive Director, Regional Coordinators, and Scholarship Team Members.

Schedule

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