The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) has announced the award of a five-year cooperative agreement by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to implement the second phase of SERVIR West Africa.

SERVIR West Africa forms one of five hubs globally. In addition, SERVIR connects space to villages by helping developing countries to leverage satellite data to address critical challenges in food security, water resources, weather and climate, land use, and disasters. SERVIR is a joint initiative of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), USAID, and leading geospatial organisations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

The SERVIR West Africa Hub was established in 2016, and the second phase will continue the next five years of operations in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal and open activities in the other West African States. The hub enjoys a productive partnership with several West African institutions and international universities and organisations. The consortium is comprised of the African Regional Institute for Geospatial Information Science and Technology (AFRIGIST, Ile-Ife, Nigeria), the Agrometeorology, Hydrology, Meteorology Regional Centre (AGRHYMET, Niamey, Niger), the Centre for Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Services (CERSGIS, Accra, Ghana), the Centre de Suivi Écologique (CSE, Dakar, Senegal), the Institut Supérieur d’Études Spatiales et des Télécommunications (Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso), and the African Institute of Mathematical Sciences (AIMS, Mbour, Senegal and Cape Coast, Ghana) as well as a partnership with the Centre for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) and the International Research Institute for Climate and Society, both at Columbia University and with the University of Florida.

ICRISAT is an International non-profit agricultural research institute with state-of-the-art agro-biotechnology research facilities supporting innovation, development, and applications of a broad range of biotechnological solutions spreading across various domains from basic research to product translation.