UN-SPIDER highlighted at UN General Assembly

02 November 2009, 7:24pm

The merits of UN-SPIDER were repeatedly highlighted during the 14th Meeting of the Fourth Committee of the United Nations General Assembly. Representatives from Sweden, Syria, Sudan, the Philippines, Libya, Indonesia, I. R. Iran, Malaysia, Burkina Faso, the Russian Federation, and Ukraine emphasized the value of the contributions of UN-SPIDER to the support of disaster management from outer space. The I. R. Iran, host of one of the UN-SPIDER Regional Support Offices, recognized the “considerable merit of the UN-SPIDER programme”. Malaysia is willing to contribute to supporting the UN-SPIDER initiatives in the equatorial belt region by sharing with the respective countries in that region its remote-sensing satellite data. The Russian Federation highlighted the inestimable value of outer space technology and drew attention to the role of UN-SPIDER as one example of putting this technology to good use. Also, Ukraine underlined its support to the programme and confirmed its offer to host a regional support office in Kyiv. The Philippines referring to the recent sequence of disasters expressed its appreciation for the valuable assistance of UN-SPIDER during the typhoons, and the special effort made by the UN-SPIDER team to consolidate satellite data on the typhoon and its impact, including post-disaster imagery to support the response effort. Finally, the urgent need to make space services available for all countries, especially developing countries, was stressed by Burkina Faso.

UN-SPIDER

Geo: International