Europe and Africa since the AEGOS project was launched in Cape Town, South Africa. More than twenty workshops and management meetings were organised as many opportunities for the twenty-three partners to interact and contribute to design the most appropriate Spatial Data Infrastructure for georesources in Africa.  The first year of Phase 1 was dedicated to analyse the existing situation and identify the various components necessary to develop and operate this future pan-African observation system. Since the mid-term workshops and conference in Dar Es Salaam (May 2010), the respective teams produced a range of proposals about the standards framework, system architecture and associated technologies, innovative products and services, spin-off projects based on AEGOS SDI as well as capacity building and training programmes.

The project activities are also carried out in a wide collaborative context of international programmes such as the European contributions to the GEO Work Plan and the privileged European Union – African Union partnership. Further to AEGOS targeted awareness actions within the GEO community and focused on the necessary contribution of geoscience, the next GEO Work Plan 2012-2015 now includes a task entitled “Energy and Geo- Resources Management”. Two references are mentioned, i.e. AEGOS project and a proposal entitled “Locating high temperature geothermal resources” generated during the GEO-AEGOS workshop in London (July 2010). During the consultation phase of the GMES has been proposed as a georesource information service infrastructure for two thematic issues, i.e. long-term natural resources management and water resources management.

Within the EU-AU partnership and relevant working groups, AEGOS is now identified as an example of projects to implement one of the bilateral cooperation actions “Geological knowledge and skills”. In its recent communication (COM 2011-25, Feb. 2011), the European Commission explicitly mentions AEGOS project to “bring the EU’s and Africa’s geo-surveys together to improve the level and quality of resource data available for Africa”.

These are as many positive and encouraging milestones on which the AEGOS team members will now build in the framework of the future Phase 2 (development and implementation).

 The last results of AEGOS Phase 1 will be presented soon, and all interested parties are kindly invited to actively participate in the Final Conference in Dakar, Senegal (19 April 2011). Looking forward to meeting with you in Dakar!

M. URVOIS (BRGM, France)

AEGOS Project Coordinator