Space for Disaster Resilience in Developing Countries

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The report is drafted by Caribou Space for the International Partnership Programme, a five-year, £30 million per year programme run by the UK Space Agency. This report outlines why and how the space industry has a critical role to play in addressing major challenges confronting disaster resilience in developing countries.

This report shows how space solutions can be deployed to great effect by developing countries to help solve environmental and societal challenges related to disaster resilience. The primary audience is the development and disaster resilience sector, and it is written as an introductory primer on the role of space in disaster resilience. Space technology and its application to disaster risk is evolving rapidly.

This report seeks to highlight the valuable work and insights provided by IPP. In doing so, it provides an overview of the subject together with examples of current thinking within IPP and similar international programmes. 

There are four sections: 

Background on disaster resilience and frameworks: provides the contextual challenge of disaster resilience and overviews existing efforts to address disaster resilience, including the UN Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 

Case for space: draws on the IPP disaster resilience portfolio to show that satellite can support the four critical areas in the Sendai framework in line with the Sendai specific recommendations for space 

Seizing the opportunity: details what space solutions for disaster resilience exist, the different use cases, sustainability and business models, and stakeholder landscape 

Additional information and guidance: the next steps once the opportunity is understood, with guidance on: accessing, processing and analysing satellite data; organisations to work with; and where to find further resources 

There is also an Annex providing an overview of IPP‘s disaster resilience projects.