The SERVIR Amazonia team had a prominent participation in the SAGE 2024 event, from October 21 to 26 in the city of Marrakech, Morocco, a space designed by SERVIR Global to strengthen collaboration and energize the network of new and established teams. This key event brought together technicians, coordinators, scientists and professionals from the SERVIR network, with the aim of strengthening cohesion and collaboration, increasing the network’s capacity for impact and sustainability, and aligning strategic priorities towards a shared future.
With the imperative to Accelerating Service Impact to Reach “the
Village”, SAGE 2024 was a space that took knowledge sharing to a higher level, highlighting viable and scalable solutions that allow each team to achieve tangible results at local and regional levels.
Álvaro Paz, Chief of Party of SERVIR Amazonia, pointed out that the objective of SERVIR Amazonia’s presence at SAGE was to demonstrate what SERVIR Amazonia has achieved in terms of service development, service evolution, delivery of results, both to users and final beneficiaries, as well as to show a consolidated and coordinated team.
“We were able to demonstrate that SERVIR Amazonia is producing extremely important results; that the most important services are being used extensively by governments, by beneficiaries, and we also managed to understand that there are new geospatial technologies that can help us improve these services, and we made the necessary contacts for this.
At SAGE, our colleagues from other Hubs and from SERVIR Global understand the power and capacity that SERVIR Amazonia has, and we have also understood that we will receive their support if necessary,” Paz stressed.
The development of the event included a series of interactive plenary sessions and small working groups, enriched by a poster session. These spaces allowed participants to explore various scientific thematic areas, as well as approaches to planning and executing services. Through an analytical lens, attendees shared knowledge about successes, challenges, and new strategies to achieve a measurable and sustainable impact.
As part of the agenda, SERVIR Amazonia presented several informational posters in reference to:
- A tool to Empower Communities to Monitor and Report Environmental Threats;
- A Service to Quantify Forest Carbon Stock Changes in he State of Mato Grosso, Brazil;
- Impacts from the Caribbean Capacity Building Program;
- Monitoring of Forest Roads in the Southwest-Amazon – MOCAF;
- Monitoring Forest Carbon Dynamics in Response to Disturbance in the Southwestern Amazon;
- Exploring Ecuador´s Mangrove Forest: Mapping and Monitoring through the MANGLEE app;
- Forecasting climate-related hazards months ahead with S2S-Amazonia.
Rodrigo Torres, Coordinator of SERVIR Amazonia for Ecuador, indicated that for Ecuador, the objective of being present at SAGE was to be able to show the progress made with the services, for example, scalability with INAMHI GEOGLOWS, show progress in biomass issues, fuel models, mapping of use and coverage, and progress in issues of communications coordination and social inclusion.
As a result of SAGE, Torres stressed that “EcoCiencia managed to strengthen ties of communications, technical ties, interaction with other hubs, and we can also analyze and see how other hubs are achieving impact, how they are reaching the territory, and we hope to be able to implement these strategies in the services we provide in Ecuador.”
Five plenary sessions focused on key service areas, with short presentations highlighting lessons learned on topics such as strategic service planning. To give a distinctive focus to each session, they were divided into five key themes: integration and scaling, data for action, partnership, inclusion, and innovation. This variety of topics allowed to maintain interest and encourage deep learning in each of these areas.
Activities were planned around Thematic Plenaries: Focused on the analysis of experiences and the identification of effective service approaches to maximize impact in local communities. SAGE also featured a Poster Session: A space for visual exhibition and dialogue where SERVIR teams shared projects, results, and ongoing initiatives, facilitating the exchange of ideas and best practices.
SERVIR Amazonia’s participation in SAGE 2024 underlines the team’s commitment to strengthening the global network and generating tangible and scalable impacts in Amazonian communities. Through knowledge sharing and collaboration within the framework of SERVIR Global, SERVIR Amazonia positions itself as an agent of change towards environmentally sustainable development in the Amazon.
