At the 2025 AfriGEO Symposium, GEO Blue Planet co-organised with the UNEP GEMS Ocean Programme and GMES & Africa a session on Marine and Coastal Management highlighting how Ocean Observation and Prediction data can help address Africa’s coastal and marine challenges. The session was held in Dakar, Senegal, on 8 October 2026 and was aligned with the Symposium’s overarching theme From Data to Impact: Strengthening Africa’s Geospatial Future.
AfriGEO, an initiative within the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) framework, brings together 32 African GEO member states and more than 15 regional institutions. It strengthens coordination between GEO activities and African priorities, supporting the development of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS).
“When Ocean data is shared under safe and FAIR principles, it becomes a force…”
The Marine and Coastal Management session gathered experts, policymakers, and regional stakeholders from across Africa and beyond. Opening remarks came from Joana Akrofi (Coordinator, UNEP GEMS Ocean Programme) and Professor Soulèye Wade (Université Cheikh Anta Diop). They underscored the importance of ocean observation and forecasting for Senegal, and particularly for the country’s artisanal fishing sector. Akrofi highlighted the importance of transdisciplinary partnerships and open data tools such as Copernicus Marine Service’s MyOcean Viewer to facilitate data sharing and improve decision-making.
A pivotal message came from John Ngatia (IOC-Africa), who noted: “When Ocean data is shared under safe and FAIR principles, it becomes a force for trust and just decision-making for people and the planet.” This call for open and ethical data practices resonated throughout the session, reinforcing the link between equitable data access and sustainable ocean governance.
Contributions followed from:
- Mohamed Atani, UNEP Sub-Regional Office for West Africa – Regional cooperation towards sustainable marine and coastal management
- Bachir Saley, African Union Commission – The Ocean and the African Union
- Kwame Adu Agyekum, GMES & Africa – The Marine and Coastal Service
- Mamadou Lamine Ndiaye, CSE Senegal – Contributions of Earth Observation Data and the Role of West African Regional Coastal Observatory (WARCO)
- Joana Akrofi, UNEP GEMS Oceans – GEMS Oceans Programme
- Kenneth Mubea, Digital Earth Africa – DEA Coastline Dashboard
- Lorien Innes, ESRI – ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World
- Yandeh Sallah-Muhammed, Mercator Ocean International – OPERA: Ocean Prediction Enhancement in Regions of Africa OceanPrediction Decade Collaborative Centre (OceanPrediction DCC) who also presented GEO Blue Planet and the Sargassum Information Hub
Session outcomes
The session concluded with a panel moderated by Kwame Adu Agyekum, with Yandeh Sallah-Muhammed, John Ngatia, and Lorien Innes.
The panellists discussed strategies to enhance Earth Intelligence in marine and coastal management, emphasising the role of citizen and youth contributions in providing additional data to strengthen Earth Observation services.
They also highlighted how regional organisations can encourage governments to adopt Earth Observation tools for resource management and underscored the importance of public–private collaboration to deliver impactful services that benefit communities and the environment.
Science communications as a powerful tool
Prior to the Marine & Coastal session, GEO Blue Planet organized on the 6th of October a science communications training for Early Ocean Career Professionals. This was led by Megan Wooley, a PhD student at the University of Cape Town with a background in marine biology and ocean-governance related projects. She is now focusing on modern and fossil marine animals including seals, mosasaurs and whales. Passionate about scientific communication and outreach, particularly in the form of public speaking, she shared her knowledge for 2 hours and was happy to see interesting debates and discussions emerge with the 12 participants of the workshop.
Participants, PhD and master students shared that it was very important to have open access to data but that this was very tricky, especially in Africa. They also gave feedback on the fact that it is very important to be better at science communication for scientists because “science isn’t always ‘sexy’ when working on quite complex or abstract topics”. Megan helped them to understand how to approach science comms and how to best present their posters during conferences and symposiums such as AfriGEO.
One participant even said “Science communication would be helpful during field work when explaining to communities what we are doing there.”
Megan Wooley accepted to share her training course slides and science comms ideas sheet.
