UNOSAT has striven for years to bring satellite applications to the attention of policy makers and senior leaders. These efforts were rewarded on 20 September when UNOSAT Manager Francesco Pisano addressed the UN High Level Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly on the MDGs during a side event organised by UNITAR, OECD and the Government of Egypt. UNOSAT offered to the audience a new perspective concerning achieving MDGs through partnerships that work because they are focused on technology and result. Pisano said “Knowledge and Action are two important stations on the way to realising the MDGs; we have found that technology is an optimal vehicle to travel the distance between these two realities: applied technology helps actors stay focused on achievable and measurable results”.

To illustrate the power of technology as an enabler of action, UNOSAT presented its technology partnership with the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the World Bank supported by the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR). The partnership intervened in the damage assessment process after the earthquake in Haiti, generating the most accurate and vast damage assessment ever made using satellite and air-borne imagery analysis. The Manager of UNOSAT said that the partnership “inspired by the MDG8, did not limit itself to its three founders: it extended to the private sector and to the national authorities in charge of geospatial information. The relentless work of Haiti’s National Centre for Geographic and Spatial Information (CNIGS) was at the centre of this unprecedented operation.”

Pisano added that that important corporations like Google and ImageCat extended their support to the operation and that the GFDRR had flown airborne photography missions over the quake area. He thanked also other actors that joined in the effort. These were from the UN (MINUSTAH), and from the geospatial community in Europe (DLR of Germany, SERTIT of France, the Politechnic School of Turin, Swisstopo and others) and in the US (the Humanitarian Inormation Unit at State Department for example, and various satellite data providers).

UNOSAT has always insisted that satellite technology, once considered only as a scientific and industrial endeavour in outer space, is today the source of practical tools to make life on earth better and emergency response more effective. Speaking about the partnership between UNOSAT, The European Commission and the World Bank, the Manager of UNOSAT said “This is a strategic partnership founded on technology but resolutely aimed at changing the policy of achieving the MDGs”