SCO & GEO, an increasingly strong collaboration

Published on 17/10/2025

Since joining forces in 2022, the SCO and the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) have continued to strengthen their ties and increase their joint actions to mobilize international climate action. The AfriGEO Symposium and EuroGEO Workshop held this October perfectly illustrate the dynamism of this collaboration. Not to mention the announcement of joint webinars!

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The SCO alongside GEO: a strategic alliance between two major players in satellite solutions for the planet. © SCO

As part of its active involvement in GEO initiatives, the SCO is continuing its efforts to strengthen international cooperation on Earth observation and climate change adaptation. Whether through participation in strategic events such as the AfriGEO Symposium and the EuroGEO Workshop, or through the development of partnerships with initiatives such as the GEO Knowledge Hub, these actions aim to consolidate our role within the GEO community and promote concrete projects.

Earth Intelligence for All

This is the motto of the Group on Earth Observations. Created in 2003, GEO is a collaborative intergovernmental organisation dedicated to co-producing geospatial solutions with users. The SCO became a participating organisation of GEO in 2022 in order to strengthen synergies and improve knowledge equity.

The SCO at the AfriGEO Symposium

From 7 to 9 October, the 9th AfriGEO Symposium was held in Dakar, providing the ideal opportunity to formalize Senegal's membership of the Space for Climate Observatory. The SCO also participated in the 1st African ODOK and organized the 2nd workshop with the Kenyan space agency.

Signing of the SCO Charter by the Senegalese Space Agency ASES (Agence Sénégalaise d'Etudes Spatiales), represented by its Director General, Mr. Maram KAIRE, making ASES the 57th signatory. On the sidelines of this event, a meeting between ASES and SCO provided an opportunity to discuss prospects for collaboration and future actions to be implemented.

Participation in the 1st African Open Data & Open Knowledge (ODOK)

The session, moderated by Letwin PONDO of the GEO Knowledge Hub (GKH), focused on GEO's regional open data guidelines. Presentations covered best practices, the use of GKH at the national level, and GEO's progress in in-situ data sharing and open-source licensing. Invited to present its activities within the GKH, the SCO focused in particular on the AIonWetlands project (currently available on the GKH platform here), which has implemented a geoportal for monitoring and managing Mediterranean wetlands.

Organization of the 2nd Kenya Space Agency/SCO workshop

Organized with the support of Expertise France, this second workshop follows on from the first workshop held in June during ESA's Living Planet Symposium. Aimed at initiating concrete action, it provided an opportunity to review the TropiSCO project and its platform , which monitors tropical deforestation in real time, as well as the activities of MEOSS, which has become a specialist in satellite monitoring of water resources thanks to the support of the SCO on various projects (MEO-Climate, Space4IRRIG et EO4AgriWater).

► The session brought together several Kenyan national stakeholders, including the Kenya Forestry Service, the Kenya Agriculture and Livestock Research Organisation, and representatives from local universities (Taita Taveta University, University of Nairobi, Technical University of Kenya). © SCO

The SCO at the EuroGEO Workshop

The SCO was also present at the EuroGEO Workshop, held from 13 to 15 October in The Hague, Netherlands, in collaboration with the European Commission and the Netherlands Space Office (NSO), also a signatory to the SCO Charter.

In this context, a round table organized by EARSC and Evenflow aimed to explore the conditions necessary to advance Earth Intelligence in Europe by strengthening the links between research, policy, the market and users. To this end, it brought together several key players in the sector, including representatives from the European Commission (JRC), ESA, EUSPA, ACRI-ST, the City of Amsterdam and the SCO.

The SCO's contribution focused on two key issues: its role in supporting innovation in operational tools for climate change adaptation and decision support for public decision-makers, and the importance it attaches to collaboration between the private sector, research and users.

👉 The SCO chose to illustrate its response with the example of the ALTELYS project, which combines satellite data, connected sensors and citizen participation to map urban heat islands in the cities of Rennes (France) and Presidente Prudente (Brazil). This project provides a concrete illustration of how such synergy can lead to an operational service that can be directly exploited by local authorities facing the impacts of climate change.

The SCO and the GEO Knowledge Hub

Consolidating the collaboration with the GEO Knowledge Hub (GKH), a series of six webinars will be organized starting in November 2025.

As part of a capacity-building approach, these sessions will focus on the Focus Areas defined by the GEO, namely: Climate, Energy and Urbanization, Weather & Disaster Resilience, Ecosystems, Biodiversity & Carbon Management, Agriculture & Food Security, Water & Land Sustainability, and One Health.

👉 Each webinar will feature three projects supported by the SCO in order to highlight the results achieved in the field, share best practices from these projects, and show how the platforms they have developed can be reused or adapted in other contexts.

🤝 These webinars thus aim to widely disseminate the operational tools produced by SCO projects, while consolidating exchanges between GEO communities and solution providers.

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