Adaptation Community Meeting: Valuing the Application of Earth Observations to Development: Lessons from the USAID and NASA SERVIR program
The SERVIR program (servirglobal.net) is a joint development initiative of USAID and NASA that builds developing countries’ capacity to apply satellite data to decision-making for food security, water resources management, disaster management, land use, ecosystem management, and weather and climate. USAID recently completed an in-depth performance evaluation that explored the use, impact and value of SERVIR’s tools, data and capacity-building efforts for its beneficiary communities.
The evaluation found that SERVIR’s products and data produced economic, environmental, and social value for communities in a range of regions and sectors. It also identified challenges to integrating new information products, particularly predictive products, into decision-making. The evaluation provides critical lessons for the design and maintenance of sustainable information services, as well as recommendations around stakeholder analysis, user engagement, and planning in complex information environments.
On June 28, 2017 the Adaptation Community Meeting hosted Isaac Morrison of Management Systems International to present the results of the new evaluation. Kevin Coffey, an Adaptation Adviser at USAID, discussed how SERVIR is incorporating lessons from the evaluation to improve development impacts. Finally, Lawrence Friedl, Director of Applied Sciences at NASA, and David Nicholson, Director of the Energy and Climate Change Technical Support Unit at Mercy Corps, provided reactions to the findings for the broader community. The session was introduced and moderated by Jenny Frankel-Reed, Adaptation Team Lead at USAID.
This event was co-sponsored by USAID as part of the monthly Adaptation Community Meeting series and the Wilson Center.