Achieved Level of Technology Transfer and Future Continuation of GMFS3 Services - a Successful Example in Sudan.
Haub, Carsten1; Kleinewillinghöfer, Luca1; Khojali, Nora Abdelraheim2; Farah, Azhari Mahgoub2; Holecz, Francesco3; Gilliams, Sven4; Pinnock, Simon5
1EFTAS, GERMANY; 2Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation, SUDAN; 3sarmap, SWITZERLAND; 4VITO, BELGIUM; 5ESA, ITALY

Global Monitoring for Food Security
(GMFS) is part of the European Space Agency's (ESA) contribution to the European Union / ESA Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) programme. It is the main European GMES Service Element in support of food security monitoring systems.
It provides Earth Observation based services and encourages partnerships in monitoring agriculture and related environmental processes in Africa and aims at bringing data and information providers together in order to assist stakeholders, nations and international organisations in better implementing their policies towards sustainable development and food security (Haub & Gilliams, 2010).

The agriculture production in Sudan is largely depending on seasonal variability and depending on intensity, duration and distribution of rains which significantly varies from year to year. Large areas in the central and western Sudan are depending on traditional rain fed agriculture mainly for own consumption. This causes high vulnerability of a certain part of the Sudanese population. About 60% of the Sudanese population are living in rural areas with an average population density of 14-17 people per km2.
In this respect the Sudanes Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation (FMoAI) considered Earth Observation technologies to be one of the most important means to strengthen the agricultural monitoring framework in Sudan and requested GMFS to investigate advanced EO contributions in particular for the assessment on traditional rain fed areas.
Based on the experiences of the cooperation between the FMoAI and the GMFS partnership which is since 2007 constantly ongoing (Haub et al., 2008), multi-scale services at the different spatial, temporal and thematic resolutions including processing chains and GIS routines for andvanced analysis had been established by GMFS and sustainably transferred to the FMoAI, which now took over the services generation and products integration into the ministries day-to-day work.

The paper will describe the achievements and current status of service integration on:
- an organizational level reflecting the transfer to operational structures and the actual involvement into the users network,
- a technological level describing the customization and adaptation of the services to the user needs and
- with a logistical focus aiming at providing an outlook on the data accessibility and dissemination in the view of the upcoming Sentinel missions.

References
KOMP, K.U. (EFTAS), HAUB, C. (EFTAS) (2012): Global Monitoring for Food Security and Sustainable Land Management - recent advances of Remote Sensing applications to African and Siberian Show Cases. International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Volume XXXIX-B8, 2012; XXII ISPRS Congress, 25 August - 01 September 2012, Melbourne, Australia, Commission VIII, WG VIII/6.
HAUB, C (EFTAS), GILLIAMS, S. (2010): GMFS service integration and know how transfer to Africa. ESA Living Planet Symposium 2010 session "GMES - Global Monitoring for Environment and Security - for Land Applications", 28.06-02.07.2010, Bergen, Norway. www.esa.int/LivingPlanet2010/.
HAUB, C. (EFTAS), IJAIMI, A. A., NABEEL, A. M. SAAD, EL SHEIKH EL BASHIR, H. (EFTAS), KHAMALA, E., BYDEKERKE, L., HOLECZ, F., TYCHON, B., RAGNI, P., VIGNAROLI, P., HENDRICKX, G., HEYLEN, C. (2008): Crop mapping services for the Sudanese Government in frame of the ESA Global Service Element "Global Monitoring for Food Security". Photogrammetrie Fernerkundung Geoinformation, Jahrgang 2008, Heft 5. E. Schweitzerbart'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung (Nägele u. Obermiller), Stuttgart, S.409-419.