Having full commitment to the GMES initiative as one of the corner stones of coordinated use of space technologies for international cooperation and sustainable development, Portugal intends to further contribute to its development and sees the extension of GMES to the African users as an important asset for taking full benefit of GMES.   

Therefore, assuming the Presidency of the European Union Council for the second half of 2007, Portugal is committed to organize an event, entitled “Space for Development: the case of GMES and Africa”, to be realized in Lisbon, on the 7^th of December, 2007 – in advance to the EU-AU Summit.

In the previous day, 6^th of December, 2007, a technical workshop will take place, for the presentation of ongoing projects and initiatives in Africa lead by the European Commission, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), on the coordination of which a “GMES Africa” must take stock.

The objectives of this event are two-fold:

• To present the initiatives on Earth Observation in Africa that the mentioned stakeholders have underway and to stimulate their coherent long term coordination for setting a basis for the deployment of the “GMES Africa”,
• To discuss the extension of GMES services to African users, bringing together the European stakeholders and Member States and the African counterparts.

On behalf of the Portuguese Presidency, it is my pleasure to invite you to participate in the event and to join our commitment of putting GMES at the service of Europe’s targets on international cooperation for sustainable development and for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

A formal invitation and the Agenda of the event will be sent to you in short time.