At the request of the Government of Sri Lanka, UN-SPIDER planned the Technical Advisory Mission (TAM) to Sri Lanka from 17 to 21 October 2011. A team of experts will meet with key disaster management authorities in the Government, UN agencies, regional and international organizations and initiatives, as well as private entrepreneurs to discuss, make recommendations and develop guidelines to improve the use of space-based information in disaster management.Experts from a wide range of organizations will be joining the UN-SPIDER team to participate in the TAM, including representatives from a university, research institutions and space agencies. The National Disaster Reduction Centre of China (NDRCC), the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission of Pakistan (SUPARCO, a Regional Support Office of UN-SPIDER), and the Iranian Space Agency K. N. Toosi University of Technology (facilitated by the Iranian Space Agency, also a Regional Support Office of UN-SPIDER), will join the mission team, as well as the University of Salzburg, Centre for Geoinformatics - Z_GIS from Austria, the Centre for Space Science Technology Education for Asia and the Pacific (CSSTEAP, affiliated to the United Nations), India, and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Disaster Management Centre, also based in India. The participation of the above institutions prepares the ground to develop meaningful partnerships between those institutions, UN-SPIDER and the Government of Sri Lanka.
