The GMES & Africa Technical Committee will convene its first meeting in Tunis, from 14 to 16 May, 2018.

The Committee comprises Consortia of African institutions awarded to implement the GMES & Africa grants, as well as EU affiliates EUMETSAT, JRC, ESA and the Technical Assistance Team of GMES & Africa.

At the Tunis meeting, participants will finalize the proposals submitted by Consortia, focusing mainly on identifying the infrastructure and data needs of each consortium, their service development methodologies, training and communications needs, as well as performance indicators underpinned by the GMES & Africa Logical Framework. It will be an opportunity to identify and agree on the roles and responsibilities of all actors and stakeholders, and design an integrated implementation roadmap. The roadmap will underline and clearly identify the activities to be undertaken by the various actors, the deliverables as well as timelines for their completion.

GMES & Africa is at the final stages of preparations for the signing of implementation contracts with selected Consortia whose proposals have been undergoing scrutiny and analysis. The Tunis meeting precedes a five-day technical workshop at the end of May in Nairobi, Kenya, where stakeholders, including the GMES & Africa Programme Management Unit and Technical Assistance Team, as well as representatives of Consortia and AU Regional Economic Communities (RECs), met to diligently analyze the details of each proposal and identify its capacity needs, taking into account the potential contributions of the RECs.