An important aspect of the EO4SD Forest Management initiative was to enable the stakeholders to utilise the geo-spatial products in a sustainable manner. Therefore, a critical component of the project activities the development of capacity among the stakeholders of the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) as well as government and non-government organisations in in the Client States (CS).

This was realised by a series of Webinars which shall ensure a wide outreach in a cost-effective manner. Additionally more customised in-country Training Workshops were conducted. The Consortium elaborated the capacity building programme using the stakeholder requirements analysis to cater for different programmatic and regional needs. The capacity building activities introduced the users to the fundamental concepts of the application of EO for forest monitoring and demonstrated the utility of different geo-spatial products for addressing various themes/topics; both theory and hands-on practical exercises were part of the training. In order to ensure a sustainable utilisation of the EO4SD-Forest products the training was conducted as far as possible using open source software.

At the end of each training a review was conducted and summarised in an deliverable to ESA. Feedback from the trainees was documented during each training event, as this formed crucial information and feedback for the future development of training sessions.