2nd GEOSS Science and Technology Stakeholder Workshop GEOSS: Supporting Science for the Millennium Development Goals and Beyond Bonn, Germany, August 28—31, 2012

Capacity Development Aspects Water and Food Security

Jens Liebe
UN-Water Decade Programme on Capacity Development (UNW-DPC), United Nations University, Bonn, Germany

Meeting the world's water, food, and energy demand is an ever more challenging endeavor. In the last 50 years, the world’s population increased from 3 to 7 billion people, spurring the demands in all three sectors. By 2050, the world population is expected to reach 8.9 billion, of which 59.1% are projected to live in Asia and 19.8% in Africa (UN 2004).

Attaining water and food security is one of the major concerns of nations. In addition to coping with the population increase, competing water demands for other purposes such as industry, generation of energy, and the environment, among others, pose additional stress on the available resources. The situation is further complicated by the uncertainty that climate change effects pose for the development of sound resources management strategies leading to greater water and food security.

Over the past decades, much progress was made in the scientific field of earth observation which can play an important role in improving the management of resources, and which could support nations in their effort to improving or attaining their water and food security. However, despite the availability of these technological and scientific advances, many nations do not have access to or make use of these. An important reason for this is the lack of capacity, both on the individual, organization and institutional levels. This presentation will focus on the importance of capacity development to make Earth Observation a meaningful tool for nations to attain water and food security.

In case of problems, mail to Web Administrator.