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INTERNATIONAL

Interview with I,

Einar unitar

Bior o f Trainn'
UNOSAT
United Nations Institute
Rcearch

Manager UNOSAT, UNITAR

Q: On 11 October UNOSAT celebrat- are no longer a start-up, we still need are easier to get than 15 years ago.
ed its 15th anniversary. Could you to keep a strong focus on delivering What has changed from your point
tell us a little about the programme timely and high quality output. If we of view?
and how it all started? don't, we are out of business. Fortu- It is amazing how this technology is
The programme started after hurri- nately, we see agencies and countries advancing. The level of detail we can
cane Mitch passed Central America coming back to us requesting more observe from commercial imagery
in 1998. While trying to mitigate analysis and capacity development. is now a thousand times more than
the effects of the disaster, it became The donor community has now also twenty years ago. The number of sat-
clear that little information existed as opened its eyes to what we do, which ellites orbiting the Earth is increasing
to the damage extent caused by the is of course fundamental in expanding exponentially, in particular new low-
hurricane and that satellite imagery our reach and increasing impact. cost small-satellite constellations. This
could have provided such informa- Another challenge was more organi- means we can in theory have access to
tion. This gave birth to the idea of zational. We came out of the blue and public or commercial satellite image-
UNOSAT, a entity that could sup- have had to set up an operational pro- ry from anywhere on the planet on a
port affected countries as well as UN duction line for analysis and capac- daily basis. Now, remember that these
agencies with information derived ity development with all the pitfalls satellites do not continuously acquire
from satellite imagery. With support that may bring about. Ensuring this images all over the place, and often we
from the European Space Agency and capability is always there and deliver- need to request new so-called tasking
the French Space Agency, a three- ing day in and day out is a challenge, to ensure new photos are taken where
year project was financed to explore but thanks to a highly dedicated we need them.
how satellite imagery could be used team, and support from an increas- Then there is the delivery time: Earli-
in support of humanitarian and de- ing number of countries, we are able er we sometimes received data as post
velopment work. The initiative was to deliver. packages weeks after we had ended
implemented on behalf of the UN Thirdly, it was not easy in the begin- our support for a specific event.
Institute for Training and Research ning to gain acceptance within the These days we are able to download
(UNITAR), and later developed into a UN system itself for our role. We the imagery to our servers at CERN
fully-fledged UNITAR programme. knew we were filling a gap, we had - the European Organization for
done our homework, but since this Nuclear Research - a few hours after
Q: Over these 15 years of existence, was a bottom-up approach, we did the satellite has passed, for example,
what do you consider as having been not start with a UN General Assem- over a flooded region in Africa. We
the main challenges? bly resolution, but rather little by lit- immediately go to work and send out
Basically, we were like a start-up com- tle gained acceptance by proving our our first analysis that day, or the day
pany. We had an idea we really be- value. Once the same agencies began after. That is why we call this specific
lieved in - and still do! - but at the coming back over and over again to activity UNOSAT Rapid Mapping
time not many people understood the request our support, we knew we were Service.
potential of satellite imagery. Being on the right track. Now we are the go-
part of an extra-budgetary organiza- to-place for satellite imagery analysis In terms of costs, there has also been
tion of the UN, we also have to fund- and capacity development in the UN a significant improvement. When I
raise ourselves. This was a challenge system, and I'm very proud of that. first entered this type of work, one
to the point that we barely survived in had to pay USD 4,000 for a medium
the early days, but it is amazing what a Q: Technologies have improved over level of detail satellite image. Now
motivated team can achieve. While we time, and today satellite images that same image is available for free.

12 DIVA - INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMAT