## 2 Earth Observation Data for Capacity Building
For example, SLMA between SANSA and Airbus Defense and Space (Formerly Astrium) has allowed free access of SPOT 5, 6 and 7 for all government departments, research and academic institutions since 2006. Access to SPOT 5, 6 and 7 has widened opportunities for international collaborations and meaningful participation in international projects. High- to very high-resolution data are valuable for calibration and validation, therefore presenting an added advantage and unique contribution in consortia-led and -funded projects. For example, the availability of archived and newly acquired high-resolution data at SANSA has enabled collaboration with the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC), on the Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL) initiative. The collaboration has allowed the exchange of data and techniques, which has allowed the development of National Human Settlement Layer, since 2006, to meet users' information needs, such as spatially explicit information on the status and evolution of the built environment, which is critical for planning functionssuch as town and land use planning, municipal demarcation and service provision. At a national scale, this dataset supports several legislative mandates of various government entities responsible for the implementation of laws such as Statistics Act No. 6 of 1999, Spatial Planning and Land Use Management Act No. 16 of 2013, Disaster Management Act No. 57 of 2002, Municipal Demarcation Act No. 27 of 1998, Conservation of Agricultural Resources Act No. 43 of 1983, and Electoral Act No. 73 of 1998. In addition, the information needs to support African policy frameworks such as the Program for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA), which can be met through upscaling of techniques from national to continental. Also, the National SPOT mosaic dataset, distributed annually to South African institutions, has been used to generate National Land Cover data and the National Crop Boundary Layer, among other things. Essentially, innovative agreements such as SLMA, negotiated on behalf of all stakeholders, are an efficient way to access otherwise-expensive data licenses in a cost-effective and sustainable manner; thus, they are key to Africa's development and for addressing data scarcity challenges. On the other hand, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data has previously been 'out-of-reach' for most African countries, which is attributable to its relatively high cost when compared to optical data, as well as the complexity of the data, limited analysis tools and lack of capability to analyze the data. SAR images are useful for cloud-prone areas such as equatorial and disaster-prone areas due to their ability to acquire images in all-weather conditions and independent of light conditions. In addition, the ability to penetrate tree canopies and the surface unlocked applications such as forest disturbance, land subsidence and soil moisture mapping with improved accuracies [47]. Data from Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) 1 and 2, TerraSAR-X, ENVISAT ASAR and RADARSAT-2 have been applied for shoreline mapping [48; 49], ship surveillance [50; 51], oil spill monitoring [52; 53; 54], and flood extent [55; 56], among other things.