The Fourth Ministerial Conference on Space Applications for Sustainable Development in Asia and the Pacific will be jointly organized by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and the Government of Indonesia on Wednesday, 26 October 2022 in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Enabling countries to harness the power of space-derived data and services is vital for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and in building back better after the COVID-19 pandemic. Following the previous Ministerial Conferences, this fourth session is being convened to sustain and reinforce regional cooperation to expand the access to, and peaceful use of, geospatial information and space technology applications for sustainable development in Asia and the Pacific.
Recognizing that the regional cooperation in space science, technological innovations and their applications plays a significant role in the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals, the Ministerial Conference on Space Applications for Sustainable Development in Asia and the Pacific at its third session in 2018 adopted the Asia-Pacific Plan of Action on Space Applications for Sustainable Development (2018-2030), which includes 188 actions in six priority thematic areas: (a) disaster risk management; (b) natural resource management; (c) connectivity; (d) social development; (e) energy; and (f) climate change. In addition, ESCAP resolution 75/6 also requested to carry out an evaluation of the implementation by member States of phase I (2018-2022) of the Plan of Action and to submit a report with recommendations to the fourth Ministerial Conference.
The major outcomes of the Fourth Conference are expected to be the following:
- Concrete member States driven regional initiatives and proposed pathways to support the implementation of the second phase of the Plan of Action; and
- A ministerial declaration, reflecting the decisions of Governments to advance regional cooperation in space applications for sustainable development.