Partnerships that shape how Earth Observation enters development finance
A central thread throughout the year was the deepening exchange with International Financial Institutions (and not only them). Rather than isolated engagements, 2025 showed how regular dialogue builds continuity and supports long-term adoption.Visits from the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank to ESA’s ESRIN centre GDA’s participation in the annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank in Milan, allowed teams to revisit joint priorities, reflect on emerging practices and identify opportunities to integrate Earth Observation (EO) earlier in project processes. These exchanges also highlighted the growing importance of triangular cooperation that links ESA, IFIs and national partners. This continued exchange also extended to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). Building on regular dialogue over the past two years, ESA and EBRD completed their first pilot engagement under the GDA programme through the Flexible Framework Funding (FFF) activity, exploring how Earth Observation can be integrated earlier into EBRD investment and project processes. The pilot reflects a broader shift seen across IFIs towards moving EO from ad hoc use to more systematic uptake.
Taken together, these forms of cooperation underline GDA’s collaborative model, bringing ESA, European industry, development institutions and national partners into sustained working relationships. This approach was recognised in 2025 with the GEO SDG Collaboration Award, which acknowledged the collective effort behind co-designed solutions and their uptake in development contexts.
GDA’s partnership landscape further expanded through a new Letter of Intent signed with the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation. This collaboration sets the foundation for tailored EO support to countries across the Global South and aligns closely with international agendas calling for more accessible development data. The agreement also reflects a shared ambition to co-create applications that respond directly to country needs.
Finally, in 2025, GDA expanded its portfolio with the launch of the Climate Adaptation and Finance activity. This marks the programme’s first dedicated engagement with Financial Intermediary Funds (FIFs), opening a new line of collaboration with institutions such as the Green Climate Fund (GCF), Global Environment Facility (GEF), Climate Investment Funds (CIF) and the Adaptation Fund (AF). Beyond technical EO developments, the activity introduces a strategic advisory role for GDA, supporting FIFs with guidance on integrating satellite-based information into their adaptation planning, training efforts, and funding frameworks.
Across all of these engagements, the emphasis remained on making EO usable and relevant to the operational realities of development institutions.
How EO is finding its place in development operations
Talking about usability and relevance, monitoring data from 2025 offer important insights into how EO supports IFI needs in practice. Around 67% of all products were taken up by IFI and country teams, most commonly for analytical work such as reports, diagnostics and technical assessments(42%). Approximately 32% were integrated into operational workflows, while 26% supported awareness-raising or early exploration of EO potential.
Experience across recent years also shows a set of recurring factors that shape usability:
- User-centred design: Products developed with end users in mind, especially those that simplify complex topics, are adopted more easily, while formats that are difficult to interpret or adapt tend to limit use.
- Early collaboration: Engaging IFIs and country counterparts from the outset helps align products with real requirements and existing systems, and reduces the perception of a top-down approach.
- Right timing: Products introduced too late in an IFI project cycle are often impossible to incorporate, while those delivered before needs are fully defined risk losing momentum.
- Appropriate scale: Demonstration-level outputs can be valuable, but may fall short when users expect national or regional coverage, highlighting the need to manage expectations around scope.
These patterns show that usability is influenced by product quality, engagement, timing and clear objectives. Overall, usage in 2025 reflects a community increasingly positioned to integrate EO into development planning and decision-making when these conditions are in place. Finally, recent insights from within the World Bank point to a growing tendency for the institution to build on GDA support through its own resources, whether by expanding EO analyses, strengthening geospatial capacity or commissioning follow-on work informed by GDA approaches. At the World Bank alone, approximately U$S16 million has been allocated to such scale-up efforts signaling how GDA activities can catalyse additional investment and help make EO a more routine element of development operations.
Advancing thematic work across regions
Against this backdrop, GDA thematic activities continued to progress. As of December 2025, the GDA Impact Dashboard records 132 Case Studies completed or in progress, supporting 130 IFI projects and drawing on 88 unique EO capabilities across all thematic areas. The bar chart below shows the distribution of Case Studies across GDA AID activities (in green) and FFF activities (in orange).
GDA activities now take place in 87 low- and middle-income countries, representing more than 65% of LMICs worldwide. The portfolio is geographically diverse, reflecting where demand has emerged and where EO uptake has proven most feasible.
Translating experience into platforms and tools
As the number of Case Studies and partnerships grew, so did the need for reference points that bring analysis methods, examples, and resources together in an accessible way. Launched during an Agora session with GDA partners at ESA’s Living Planet Symposium 2025, three platforms became operational pillars of the programme:
- The GDA Knowledge Hub now provides a central space for training materials and technical resources. It is already supporting teams who need practical guidance for their work.
- The Analytics and Processing Platform offers advanced processing capabilities and a space to develop analytical workflows that can be replicated or adapted by development institutions.
- The GDA Impact Sphere presents real applications through an interactive global interface that allows users to explore examples and understand how satellite derived insights support project decisions.
Together, these platforms help turn experience into accessible knowledge and support the gradual mainstreaming of EO across development operations.
A growing community of practice
The GDA Knowledge Hub and the Analytics Processing Platform were introduced during the GDA Knowledge Event held at ESRIN in October. This event served as a working forum rather than a traditional conference. For the first time, ESA GDA convened participants from ESA, development banks, European industry and partner countries together. Over three days they explored practical challenges and exchanged perspectives on how satellite information can support project design, monitoring and evaluation.
Several themes emerged consistently throughout the discussion. Participants noted the value of co-design, the importance of tailoring analyses to local priorities, and the need for accessible tools that help teams translate satellite information into day to day decision-making. The exchanges also underscored the role of shared learning in strengthening long-term adoption.
The Knowledge Event helped consolidate a community that is increasingly experienced in applying EO across diverse development contexts, while also highlighting where further support and capacity building are needed.
Strengthening internal processes
Behind the scenes, 2025 was a year of reinforcing the systems that enable GDA to expand and run more efficiently. Several core processes were revisited and streamlined to create a clearer, more coherent foundation for the programme as a whole.
A key step was the introduction of a unified reporting structure and shared definitions for Case Studies, Use Cases, and EO capabilities. These were developed collaboratively with partners to ensure greater consistency, comparability, and transparency across thematic areas. This shared taxonomy now underpins monitoring, supports future impact assessments, and improves the quality of information available to both ESA and IFIs. GDA also modernised its digital tools, for example, the transition to a consolidated Power BI dashboard brought together data from across the programme into a single interface. This provides a clearer picture of activity across countries and themes, and ongoing work aims to increase the visibility of IFI engagement over time.
These improvements form the operational backbone of the programme. They strengthen information flow across teams, enhance evidence reliability and create the conditions for the partnerships and progress highlighted this year, while laying a strong foundation for the next phase of GDA’s work.
Looking ahead
As GDA transitions toward ESA’s wider Earth Action programme, the developments of 2025 provide a clear direction. Users increasingly seek Earth observation as part of regular planning, monitoring and evaluation processes. Partnerships are becoming more structured, with clearer pathways from data to decisions. The platforms launched this year create a foundation for wider future adoption.
The coming year will focus on supporting this momentum, expanding operational uptake, deepening collaboration with international financial institutions and UN partners and ensuring that Earth observation remains accessible, relevant and practical for those shaping development strategies.
