Space for Migration

An informal workshop was held at ESTEC on February 15-16, in an attempt to analyse how ESA programmes could help to tackle the migration crisis, in the frame of the “Space for Earth” initiative.

Migration,  as a result of war, terrorism, poverty or economic crisis, is an increasing concern of our 22 Member States and one of the greatest challenges they currently face. Satellites already play a role in migration issues, and they could play an even greater role in the future via applications to be developed or future programmes. This workshop followed on from an ESA internal jam session on the issue brought to life by ESA's DG, Jan Woerner, in September of last year.

The first day of the workshop saw input from users in the field, among others Action Aid, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), REACH International, the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD), the European Union Satellite Centre (SatCen), the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). They comprehensively explained how they are already benefiting from, for instance, satellite imagery to be able to carry out humanitarian relief, to monitor activities in hotspots around the world and to generally aid with migratory, safety or security issues. They also highlighted the current shortcomings of the delivered data and processing methods available.

Experts from all areas within ESA contributed to the discussion on the second day to show how ESA programmes could help tackle some of the issues involved with the migration crisis. During the aforementioned jam session several ideas were proposed to alleviate some of the immediate problems of migration and to look further into the source of these problems. Cooperating with users in the field will hopefully lead to a successful integration of ESA's knowledge with the day-to-day challenges of people who are trying to solve some of the most basic issues of migration.