The MarCOSouth projects is strongly focused on providing decision-makers with services and tools in a clearly directed response to sustainable socio-economic development goals; directly linked to national, regional and continental mechanisms, and involving both Southern African Development Community and Indian Ocean Commission Regional Economic Centre, and the South and East Africa GMES and Africa potential Regional Implementation Centres (RICs).
The MarCOSouth project will considerably strengthen regional and national capacities to generate and apply Earth Observation (EO) services, as demonstrated by the user-focused EO service development methods, substantial proposed user engagement and training mechanisms, wide application range multi-sensor and regionally optimised algorithms and products used, and sophisticated Information Technology (IT) and processing/serving capability of the proposed MarCOSouth Information Management System (IMS).
The OCIMS and GMES combined capability is the primary vehicle for the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research’s (CSIR) engagement around regional Blue Economy knowledge based service development and should be considered an exemplar for research to operational transition in the knowledge economy.