SERVIR West Africa promotes the use of publicly available satellite imagery and related geospatial tools and products to help key stakeholders and decision makers in the region make more informed decisions in four areas: agriculture and food security; water security; weather and climate resilience; and ecosystems and carbon management. To accelerate outcomes in these service areas, SERVIR West Africa is also developing innovative financial instruments.
Implementer: The SERVIR West Africa hub consortium is led by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), with their main regional offices in Bamako, Mali. ICRISAT, a CGIAR Research Center, is a non-profit, non-political public international research organization that conducts agricultural research for development in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
Additional consortium members include:
- African Regional Institute for Geospatial Information Science and Technology (AFRIGIST)
- Agrometeorology, Hydrology and Meteorology (AGRHYMET) Regional Center
- African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS)
- Centre for Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Services (CERSGIS)
- Centre de Suivi Ecologique (Ecological Monitoring Center) (CSE)
- Institut Superieur D’Etudes Spatiale et Telecommunications (Higher Institute for Space Studies and Telecommunications) (ISESTEL)
- Columbia University
- University of Florida
SERVIR West Africa’s current program launched under the leadership of ICRISAT in 2022. Previously, the hub was implemented by the Permanent Inter-State Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS) subsidiary, the Agrometeorology, Hydrology and Meteorology (AGRHYMET) Regional Center in Niamey, Niger, with the support of Tetra Tech, Inc. from 2016 to 2022.
Countries: Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal
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Flash Flood Vulnerability Mapping in West Africa
ReinForced cooperAtion to provide operatioNal Flood forecasting and Alerts in West afRica (FANFAR) is an ongoing effort implemented by the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute and AGRHYMET.
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Monitoring Ephemeral Water Bodies in Ferlo, Senegal
The Monitoring Ephemeral Water Bodies in Ferlo, Senegal Service is a web-based platform for assessing water availability in all known ponds, thus facilitating water management in ar
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Monitoring of Artisanal Mining (Galamsey) in Ghana
The Monitoring of Artisanal Mining (Galamsey) in Ghana Service is a monitoring platform with information on the location of illegal mining sites across Ghana and their associated la
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Sub-Seasonal To Seasonal Forecasting
This service focuses on the production of seasonal crop-related weather forecasts for improving the quality of products disseminated to end users such as farmers.
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SERVIR-West Africa: Planting Seeds of Success with Young Women in Science
A unique mentoring program called Kimiya Yan Mata (Girls in Science) is designed to encourage students, especially girls, to become more involved in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) subject areas.
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Could Satellites Help Head Off a Locust Invasion?
A single desert locust (Schistocerca gregaria) can consume its body weight in vegetation in one day. That may not sound like much for one 2.5-gram locust, but when 40 million of them gather they can devour as much food as 35,000 people.
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Reducing illegal gold mining in the tropical forests of Ghana and Peru
At the recent global knowledge exchange of SERVIR staff from SERVIR-Amazonia and SERVIR-West Africa exchanged ideas and experiences on services for illegal mining detection.
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Video: SERVIR Uses Satellite Data to Monitor Locust Swarms in Eastern Africa
To fight locusts in east Africa, SERVIR Global is using NASA satellites to guide USAID and FAO resources on the ground. Watch how technology in space can help combat an ancient plague.
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SERVIR West Africa Fights Deforestation in Ghana with Earth Observations
Ghana is home to some of the most biodiverse and carbon-dense forests in the world. But more than a third of them have been lost in recent decades.
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Use Case: A Rocha Ghana
A Rocha Ghana (ARG) is an established environmental organization in Ghana that helps communities adapt to their changing natural environments. It currently works in the West Gonja District in northern Ghana where charcoal production is widespread.
