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“Farmstar”, a service of Airbus Defence and Space and ARVALIS – Institut du végétal for precision farming based on satellite information, has been further improved: new images acquired by the SPOT 6 and SPOT 7 satellites will make it possible to issue intra-field recommendations for areas as small as 1 hectare.


Plot management now down to 1 hectare, using UAVs, SPOT 6 and SPOT 7 satellites
bq. New interactive advice for nitrogen input at the 1 cm ear stage, at the exit of the winter, for wheat, barley and triticale crops.

Automatic and manual modulation files are accessible to all farmers via the “Farmstar” web portal. An additional advice for calculating the nitrogen input at the 1 cm ear stage enables this input to be broken down and adjusted for wheat, barley and triticale crops. The nitrogen fertilisation recommendations now take into account the objectives of the Proteins Plan for wheat quality thanks to new nitrogen requirement specifications for soft wheat, to optimise how this two-fold ‘yield–protein content’ objective is addressed.

These new developments come at the right time: after an extremely difficult year, due to exceptionally poor meteorological conditions, French farmers are now more than ever looking to save on farm inputs while continuing to manage their crops sustainably and with a focus on environmental protection. The number of farmers signed up for the service has constantly risen over the past 15 years. Nearly 800,000 ha of plots were monitored by “Farmstar” last season, enabling more than 18,000 farmers to save time and money through precise management of the exact needs of their crops.

“Farmstar” is a service distributed by the cooperatives, chambers of agriculture and traders dedicated to precision agriculture and crop management developed by Airbus Defence and Space and ARVALIS – Institut du végétal, in partnership with Terres Inovia. Throughout the season, the service provides reliable information that can be directly used by farmers to help them quickly make relevant decisions. This advice, combining satellite, UAV and aircraft imagery with agronomic expertise, exposes the real need of plants within each plot at different key stages in the crop growth and allows the right amount of inputs to be added in the right places at the right time.

Farmstar

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PhotoSat has announced the publication of 21 new satellite surveying accuracy studies on their website—these studies include data from seven different stereo satellite systems, with the best results showing elevation surveying accuracies of better than 15 cm.

The accuracy studies include stereo satellite data from the following satellites:

  • WorldView-1
  • WorldView-2
  • WorldView-3
  • Pleiades-1B
  • KOMPSAT-3A
  • SPOT-7
  • ALOS PRISM

According to Gerry Mitchell, the President of PhotoSat, the company has delivered more than 700 satellite surveying projects since 2007 and accuracy evaluations have been carried out on the majority of them. While most of the actual survey data cannot be publicly published, as that information is proprietary to PhotoSat clients, feedback has been provided on the majority of the projects. The company is able to confirm the results of the 21 new accuracy studies as consistent with both client feedback and the firm’s own project accuracy evaluations.

The accuracy studies were conducted over two test areas: one located west of Asmara, Eritrea, where PhotoSat has access to more than 45,000 ground survey points over a 50 km by 20 km block, and the second in SE California, where PhotoSat uses a very accurate Opentopography.org open source LiDAR survey.

The studies employed different numbers of ground survey control points for each test area and each satellite system, and it was discovered that increasing the number of ground survey points did not necessarily correlate with higher accuracy. For example, the accuracy of the WorldView-3 survey for the California test area was not improved by additional ground survey points. This WorldView-3 survey is accurate to 13 cm in elevation with one ground survey control point and with 153 ground survey control points.

In contrast, some satellite stereo pairs did have accuracy significantly improved by increasing the number of ground survey control points. The WorldView-2 survey for Eritrea was accurate to 19 cm in elevation, with two ground control survey points, and accurate to 14cm in elevation with 21 ground control points. PhotoSat has been continuously producing accuracy studies since 2007 in order to provide objective, quantifiable accuracy data for stereo satellite surveying and mapping. PhotoSat has previously published nine of these studies.

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Monday, 19 December 2016. The new information on Sea Surface Height, Ocean Colour and Sea Surface Temperature, disseminated via EUMETCast, EUMETSAT’s flexible data dissemination system, will ensure improved management of fishing zones and security for fishermen at sea as well as the forecast of harmful algae bloom and coastal protection.

This new service responds to the request of key marine regional centres in Africa and was coordinated by the African Union with the European Commission. It ensures the availability of vital satellite information in support of marine resources and coastal management on the whole African continent.

Disseminating the data via EUMETCast secures the simultaneous availability of data all across the continent and ensures easy access even in remote locations with limited internet access.

“The combination of data from Sentinel-3 and Jason-3 will go a long way to improve the development of Potential Fishing Zone charts”

The introduction of the new service was complemented with training activities for African users on how to use EUMETSAT’s Copernicus Marine data stream for operational marine surface analysis. The course in the Pretoria training centre ran from 12 – 15 December.

The new data stream will also feed the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) and Africa Support Programme of the European Commission and the African Union Commission.

As Georges Wiafe, Coastal and Marine Resources Management Centre at the University of Ghana, points out “The higher-resolution data delivered by Sentinel-3A will flow into enhanced ocean products to support fisheries management and provide better safety at sea for West African users.

“I am convinced the combination of data from Sentinel-3 and Jason-3 will go a long way to improve the development of Potential Fishing Zone charts and the monitoring of ocean conditions in the region.”

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Five years ago, the very high-resolution satellite Pléiades 1A was launched from the Guiana Space Center, joined by its twin Pléiades 1B a few months later. This was the start of what is known as the Pléiades constellation, which makes it possible to create imagery product of every point of the globe at a 50cm resolution within a few hours and to guarantee a daily revisit, with more than one million km² acquired each day.

The Pléiades constellation has demonstrated its reactivity during the earthquake that rocked Ecuador on April 16, 2016, providing an image on the town of Pedernales in just four hours after being acquired. Immediately delivered to the local authorities, it enabled organizers to provide the various relief operations, and to carry out a rapid assessment of the damage.

The precision of the Pléiades imagery, coupled with the speed of acquisition over large regions, also played a key role in demonstrating the demolition of the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria by the Islamic State in 2015 and thereby creating a consciousness for the need of preservation of this UNESCO world heritage site.

The two satellites, built and operated by Airbus Defence and Space on behalf of CNES (the French Space Agency), are the first European satellites to observe the Earth in very high resolution. Providing imagery products at 50cm resolution with a 20km swath, they are positioned 180 ° apart in a same near-polar, sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 694 km. They also have remarkable agility which allows them to aim a point up to 1500 km on either side of their track. This gives them a fast zone-pointing capability and multiple shooting modes (stereo, mosaics, corridor, targets).

(Munich, December 14, 2016) The European Environment Agency (EEA) has recently contracted GAF AG and its international partners to implement the update of the Copernicus High Resolution Layers (HRLs) Imperviousness, Forest, Grassland, Water/Wetness and Small Woody Features in the frame of the continental component of the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (CLMS).

Three leading European geo-information service companies – GAF AG (Germany), GeoVille GmbH (Austria) and SIRS SAS (France) – have joined forces to serve Europe’s need for consistent mapping and updating of all five High Resolution Layers (HRL) 2015 on land cover characteristics for all of Europe. Complemented by e-GEOS S.p.A. for grassland mapping, the joint team has conducted a successful Kick-off Meeting together with EEA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Topic Centre on Urban Land and Soil Systems (ETC-ULS) in Copenhagen end of August 2016. Framework Service Contracts with a total volume of up to eight million Euro have been signed. The main production will run within a 12 to 18 months time period.

Based on high to very-high resolution satellite imagery, including ESA’s Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 satellites, the team will perform an update and change mapping of the High Resolution Layers “Imperviousness” and “Forest”, as well as a new mapping of “Grassland”, “Water and Wetness”, and “Small Woody Features” for the EEA-39 countries (approx. 6 million km²). All thematic Layers provide dedicated information on current environmental conditions and change trends of the major land cover / land use types at 20 m spatial resolution. In complement to the well-established CORINE Land Cover (CLC), the HRLs will serve a broad user community, including European administration as well as Member State institutions, supporting applications for environmental policies and political decision-making. All final products will be made freely available by EEA via the CLMS portal (http://land.copernicus.eu).

About GAF AG

GAF AG is an e-GEOS (Telespazio/ASI) company seated in Munich, Germany. It is a leading solutions provider with an international reputation as skilled and reliable supplier of data, products and services in the fields of geo-information, satellite remote sensing, spatial IT and consulting for private and public clients. GAF is one of the most experienced European service providers in the EU/ESA Copernicus programme and covers all thematic domains: Land, Marine, Atmosphere, Climate Change, Emergency Management and Security. GAF further provides solutions in the sectors of Agriculture & Food Production, Environmental and Water Management, Forestry and Climate Change, Infrastructure and Mobility, Land Management, Insurance and Asset Management, Mining, Oil & Gas, Telecommunications and Network Planning, for Space Agencies & Satellite Operators as well as Defence and Security. Since 1985, GAF AG has successfully completed more than 1,000 projects worldwide. Further information is available at http://www.gaf.de.

About GeoVille GmbH

GeoVille is a private sector enterprise founded in 1998 and is based in Innsbruck, Austria. It is an internationally operating company, providing consultancy, services and products related to Earth Observation, Geo-information and Geographic Information Systems. The company has a longstanding experience in information service provision in the field of land and environmental monitoring. Our customers stem from private industry sectors, public organizations and research institutes. Since its foundation, GeoVille has successfully carried out more than 400 projects in more than 120 countries worldwide. GeoVille’s focus is on the integration of satellite earth observation based information and in-situ data in order to provide assessment and monitoring services. GeoVille enables geographic accounting of human and natural dynamics through a satellite’s eye, adding the spatial dimension to information gathering, analysis and monitoring, for policy support and informed decision making. Further information is available at http://www.geoville.com.

About SIRS SAS

SIRS is an independent private company and a French Earth Observation (EO) Service Provider founded in 1989 specialising in geographical information production as input to Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Over the last 27 years, SIRS has acquired significant capacities in developing operational services and managing large-scale EO production projects. SIRS’s main activities are in the fields of land cover/use mapping for urban planning and environmental monitoring, Habitat cartography (Natura 2000), Agricultural monitoring and Crop inventory, Defense geographic data production, Forestry inventory and cartography, tree management. SIRS has been involved in a number of large international EO based projects related to Forestry, land-use and agricultural services involving the processing of large amounts of multi-source EO data. Further information is available at http://www.sirs-fr.com/en

About e-GEOS

e-GEOS, an ASI (20%)/Telespazio (80%) company, is a leading international player in the Earth Observation and Geo-Spatial Information business. e-GEOS offers a unique portfolio of application services, also thanks to the superior monitoring capabilities of the COSMO-SkyMed constellation, and has acquired a leading position within the European Copernicus Program. Application services include: monitoring for environmental protection, rush mapping in support to natural disaster management, specialized products for defense and intelligence, oil spill and ship detection for maritime surveillance, interferometric measurements for landslides and ground subsidence analysis, thematic mapping for agriculture and forestry. In support to its operational applications, e-GEOS operates the Matera Space Centre for acquisition, archiving and processing of multi-mission satellite data including COSMO-SkyMed and ESA Sentinels. Further information is available at www.e-geos.it.

About EEA

The European Environment Agency (EEA) is a European Union public body seated in Copenhagen, Denmark. It supports the European Union in the development and implementation of environmental policies by providing relevant, reliable, targeted and timely information on the state of the environment and future prospects, as well as independent scientific knowledge and technical support. The European Commission entrusted EEA with coordinating the implementation of the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service’s continental (pan-European) and local components, as well as the service cross-cutting in situ coordination. Currently, the EEA has 33 member countries (i.e. the 28 Member States of the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey) and 6 cooperating countries. Further information is available at http://www.eea.europa.eu.

About Copernicus Land Monitoring

Copernicus, previously known as GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security), is the European Programme for establishing a European capacity for Earth Observation (more information at http://www.copernicus.eu). The objective of its Land Monitoring service is to provide users in the field of environment and other terrestrial applications with consistent and up-to-date information based on space data and other sources. It addresses a wide range of policies such as environment, regional development, agriculture, transport and energy at EU level, as well as European commitments to international conventions. It comprises three main elements: the global, the continental (pan-European), and the local service components. Information, data and products of the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service is accessible at http://land.copernicus.eu.

To obtain more information, please contact:
GAF AG
Daniela Miller
Arnulfstr.199, 80634 Munich
Tel. +49 89 12 15 28-0
Fax. +49 89 12 15 28-79
info@gaf.de | www.gaf.de

Geo4i company, specialized in geospatial analysis, is using coherence map to highlight interest activities.

Coherence map is a derived product from radar imagery showing all changes between two radar images in interferometric condition.

This kind of product can be very useful to monitor activities around places of interest.
In this context, a study on refugee camps along the Jordan / Syria border, Handalat and Rukban camps, have been realized with Sentinel-1 radar imagery within the period of April and May 2016.

This monitoring shows a lot of activities around the two camps but reveals that Jordan seems to prefer Rukban camp as entry point into the country.

Indeed, the crossing activity at the border is more important at Rukban camp than Handalat camp during the study period.

BENGALURU: ISRO today said it would launch a record 83 satellites in one go using its workhorse PSLV-C37 toward the end of January.

“We are working for a January launch. It will be toward the end of January. The date has to be fixed,” Indian Space Research Organisation Chairman A S Kiran Kumar told reporters here.

Of the 83 satellites, 80 belong to Israel, Kazakhstan, Netherlands, Switzerland and the US. They weigh about 500 kg.

The three Indian satellites are Cartosat-2 series, weighing 730 kg as primary payload, and INS-IA and INS-1B, weighing 30 kg.

Setting a record in its space programme, ISRO in June had successfully launched 20 satellites, including its earth observation Cartosat-2 series, in a single mission on board PSLV-C34 from the spaceport in Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.

The space agency had earlier sent 10 satellites into orbit in a single mission in 2008.

Calling 2016 a “good” year, Kumar said ISRO would launch at least five communication satellites in 2017.

“It (launches) will be more next year, we are actually looking at almost something like five communication satellites, then many more others. Some earth observation also,” he said in response to a question on the number of launches that can be expected in 2017.

Read more at

The event, organised by EARSC with the support of ESA, will take place on 25 January 2017 from 10:30 to 16:30, at the Royal Library of Belgium.

The main objective of the meeting is to hold a discussion on the steps being taken to help develop the market for EO services. ESA will present their latest thoughts after the recent ESA Ministerial on the EO Exploitation platforms and Market Development activities and EARSC will present the first results of the study related to the European Marketplace for EO Services. Further speakers should be invited. We hope for a stimulating discussion on what industry expects from these activities.

Registrations are open at the following link http://bit.ly/earsc25jan
More info

The German Ministry of Food and Agriculture is funding project “BigPicture – Diagnosis in the field: Big-Data-based determination of causes for satellite-image-derived and site-specific variations” carried out jointly by rasdaman GmbH, Bremen, and Spatial Business Integration GmbH, Darmstadt. Goal is helping farmers to optimize returns and to protect the environment through innovative Big Data technology.

A ceremony marked the official kickoff and underlined importance of this project. “For German agriculture it is important to play in the worldwide ivy league when it comes to hitech services. Projects like BigPicture play an important role due to their outstanding innovation and practical relevance”, says Parliament State Secretary of the Federal Ministry for Food and Agriculture, Peter Bleser, while handing out the funding certificate on October 10.

With this handover of the certificates to rasdaman GmbH and Spatial Business Integration (SBI) the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture officially announced its financial support of the BigPicture research project through its innovation grants program. Overall volume of this 2.5 years project is above one million Euro. Technically, BigPicture aims at interpreting satellite captured variations in farm fields through Big Data technologies so that targeted measures, such as fertilizer placement, application of pesticides, or choice of species to grow, can be derived. Manifold information will be combined in such analyses, including satellite imagery, weather data, as well as the farmers’ experience. This way, the process chain from satellite-based symptoms capturing in the field over diagnosis up to therapy recommendation will be automated completely.

By combining the complementary know-how of both partners Big Picture aims at establishing large-scale automated analysis offering individual insights and support for agricultural production in Germany.

Bremen-based hitech company, rasdaman GmbH, is world leader with its multi-award-winning agile Big Data technology for massive spatio-temporal datacubes. Just this summer US magazine CIOReview has chosen high-speed server rasdaman into their list of top Big Data solutions worldwide. Scaling seamlessly from laptops over clouds to intercontinental federations, rasdaman is in operation at leading data centers. The European Space Agency (ESA) operates a rasdaman database with 145 Terabyte, and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) wants to unleash its world’s largest climate data archive encompassing 90 Petabyte. International “Big Datacube” standards used rasdaman as a blueprint, such as ISO Array SQL and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) “Big Geo Data” suite, WCS.

Spatial Business Integration GmbH (SBI) focuses on providing services on a worldwide scale based on satellite and geospatial data for its customers in the agricultural sector, as well as the agro-chemical and finance industries. “We care about the world, which is why we provide information which can protect food, water and nature”, stated General Manager Dr. Born recently at a conference attended by delegates from the agricultural, agro-chemical and space industries. Providing intelligent information products derived from geospatial data assists SIB’s clients in realizing their business strategies, ensuring efficient business processes, saving time and money, and managing limited resources such as arable land, nutrients and water. Spatial Business Integration’s success is anchored in more than 20 years of experience and expertise in the fields of satellite remote sensing, geospatial technologies, plant sciences, water and agriculture.

The BigPicture project is supported by funds of the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) based on a decision of the Parliament of the Federal Republic of Germany via the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (BLE) under the innovation support programme.

Contacts:
rasdaman GmbH
Dr. Peter Baumann
baumann@rasdaman.com
www.rasdaman.com

Spatial Business Integration GmbH
Dr. Jürgen Born
juergen.born@spatial-business-integration.com
www.spatial-business-integration.com

By Geospatial World – October 11, 2016

Countries need to integrate their information systems at a national level, which would then flow up into a regional and global level, believes Greg Scott, Inter-Regional Advisor of the UN Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM)

How will geospatial data be useful in achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)?

The new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which was adopted in September 2015, has provided an important opportunity for earth observations and geospatial information to be better understood within the United Nations system itself. Leveraging this opportunity is important for countries, and we are working very hard to enable them to achieve this visibility, and to provide direction to them. We are making sure that the member countries realize how geospatial information, earth observations, statistics and other new data can support their development agenda, and help them to measure and monitor the goals of the sustainable development process.

Do you see the need to create a new framework to streamline the availability and accessibility of data across nations?

Reinventing the wheel, or even doing something new and revolutionary, is not what is required. We need to begin with the basics by integrating our information systems at a national level, which would then flow up into a regional and global level. So, it is all about how we take some of our existing information systems and structures, and potentially tailor them more for delivering on the environmental, economic and social aspects of our data construct and needs within and across countries.

Having lots of data is great, but being able to use and leverage that data and turn it into valuable information and knowledge to support decision-making is really where the integration and change needs to occur

How would you visualize the structure of such a framework to be?

As a pragmatic solution, the framework would follow a national bottom-up approach. For example, the new SDGs have 17 goals, 169 targets, and 230 initial global indicators. Those indicators will be used in different ways by different countries. The framework on how they use their data to measure the indicators will largely depend on institutional and architectural arrangements that already exist. In developed countries, that is quite easy in terms of how they modify national spatial data infrastructures or other information systems. But, what is also very important is how that applies to developing nations and some of the least developed countries. This mandate hopefully would provide these countries with the opportunity to start building and harnessing the same processes. It would allow them to learn from other countries and also from the institutional arrangements or the governance that goes around those processes and frameworks.

Across the world, we are moving from a data-poor paradigm to data-rich paradigm. So, how can data be best used to monitor SDGs?

Yes, we are moving toward a data-rich world where there seems more data available than we can sometimes use, but the concept of rich and poor countries applies to data as well. While many developed countries are data-rich, not only in data but also in architectural technologies, institutional arrangements, methodologies, standards, etc., many of the developing countries are very data-poor due to considerable capacity and capability resource constraints. That is a very important factor to consider when trying to ensure that, as the 2030 Agenda aspires that ‘no-one is left behind’. Similarly, having lots of data is great, but being able to use and leverage that data and turn it into valuable information and knowledge to support decision-making is really where the integration and change needs to occur.

Agenda 2030 recommends building capacities by 2020 through training and capacity development programs. How does your organization plan to achieve this?

One of the big challenges for the 2030 Agenda is around capacity development and knowledge transfer. We need to figure out how to bring more enabling technologies and capabilities from the data-rich countries to the data-poor countries. Within the UN-GGIM, we are very conscious of this fact, as the entire UN system has a central focus on capacity development. We are working hard toward this end, but, what we require are resources. Many of us are aware of that, but we only have finite resources. So, using the goodwill and the trust that has been provided by many of the countries around the world to support this process is incredibly important. It was certainly reflected in the outcome of what is known as the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, in which governments and civil society looked at financing for development to better provide support to those countries that are not so well-off.

*How can we facilitate improved collaboration between statistical and geospatial communities to achieve the larger goals of SDGs? *

This concept of integration of statistical and geospatial information has been a paramount agenda within the UN system for several years now. UN-GGIM has been working closely with the UN Statistical Commission, via a dedicated Expert Group, looking at these integration challenges for three years, which are also now closely aligned to what we need for SDGs. This is going ahead very quickly and progressing to the point where a global statistical-geospatial framework is being considered by the countries. It will also be a key enabler for statistics in geospatial organizations around the world to work together and to collaborate and coordinate their abilities to measure and monitor the implementation of the SDGs.

We need to consider data as a national information system, so that countries can think about their statistical, environmental, geospatial information and earth observation institutes in a more holistic way

What other geospatial partnerships and collaborations do you think are required to further the SDG agenda?

One of the evolving things that either needs to be changed, or in some degree is already changing, is considering data as more of a national information system, so that countries can think about their statistical, environmental, geospatial information, earth observation institutes in a more holistic way. Then there are new and emerging sources of data, including Big Data, that are becoming available, and need to be integrated into national information systems to provide greater richness and context to the national information base. As this starts to progress, we will see better outcomes. And in that process, its treatment and management would be quite critical.

What are your views about policy recommendations to be adopted by the nations?

One of the important policies that UN-GGIM is trying to consider is not being so much around the governance side, but having the arrangements in place so that information is not only interoperable, standards-based and transferable, but also open and shared across different agencies within and across governments. Adopting such processes will ensure that the information is created only once, but is able to be shared and used many times over.

How can countries align data investments with priority data gaps?

Due to its breadth and depth, one of the requirements that we are seeing in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda is the need for new data sources. Obviously, there will be some data that does not presently exist, but there will also be some data that does exist and is ‘potentially available’ if it is restructured or repurposed for the needs of the goals, targets and indicators of the SDGs. We now have the list of 230 indicators. Within months, we will know the total number of data gaps. Some of them are considerable, not so much in their spatial resolution, but in their temporal resolution. For example, data that is two, three or four years old cannot readily contribute to an annual reporting outcome ― so we need to bring the time lag down. Additionally, some of the data sources and their use pose a degree of challenge to our professional community. We need to partner with agencies, governments, other international organizations as well the private sector and those who often have more agility and ability to bring data such as earth observations into the discussion, rather than some of the more traditional means that we have. So, it is very much a case of evolving and leveraging some of these capabilities.

*What is your perspective about open data as an enabler for the SDGs’ success?

Open data in the context of the SDGs is going to be very important. To have good interoperability and information systems, free, open and timely data that is maintained and sustained is going to be of prime importance. One thing about open data, or the concept of how information can be made available over time, is that the SDG process is going to continue for 15 years. So, when we think about provision of data, it is not a one-off thing; it has to be something that is able to continue over that 15-years cycle. So, having these kinds of contexts — whether it is freely available or at a cost, and the terms of access — is going to be very important, particularly for developing countries.

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