Benjamin Koetz, Head of ESA’s Sustainable Initiatives Office, added, “ESA's Earth observation track record in varied regions including Asia, Africa or Latin America and our expertise in making the most out of satellite data across different sectors here on Earth means we are ideally placed to implement this action plan together with the European Commission and the Philippines.”

The programme will be a building block for the future Team Europe Initiative on Digital Transformation and Digitalisation, with a Team Europe Approach. The primary national partners for the National Copernicus Capacity Support Action Programme for the Philippines (CopPhil) are the Department of Science and Technology of the Government of the Philippines, together with the Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA).

The agreement was signed today at the European Space Conference by Josef Aschbacher, ESA’s Director General, Koen Doens, Director General for International Partnerships at the European Commission, in the presence of Pablito Mendoza, Deputy Chief of Mission and Consul General of the Embassy of the Republic of the Philippines to the Kingdom of Belgium and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.

This new collaboration takes place in the context of the EU Global Gateway Strategy, which aims to boost smart, clean and secure links in digital, energy and transport sectors and to strengthen health, education and research systems across the world.

As part of the programme, ESA is responsible for the ‘space component’, which not only includes the Sentinel satellites, but also the network of receiving stations and processing centres through which data are made available for the range of Copernicus services.