Isatphone Pro helps disaster response exercise

Inmarsat’s services proved key to a multi-national disaster response exercise involving more than 30 African nations. The second ‘Africa Endeavor’ (AE) humanitarian and disaster planning event was staged in Accra, Ghana, and in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, during two weeks in August, and was the first time BGAN and IsatPhone Pro services were demonstrated to participating armed forces and representatives of the African Union.

AE is coordinated by the US Africa Command (USAFRICOM), the US armed forces organisation established to promote democracy and expand, develop and provide common defence in Africa. It tests and strengthens the communications interoperability of African militaries for regional peacekeeping, and humanitarian and disaster relief.

In its closing report on this year’s exercise, USAFRICOM highlighted the successful call via satellite using IsatPhone Pro from the AE site in Accra to the African Union Peace Support Operations Centre in Addis Ababa which “showed AE participants how useful reliable communication between the nations and the African Union is during times of disaster relief”.

The Inmarsat Government Services team attended the event and ran a training programme including an introduction to BGAN and IsatPhone Pro. They also tested how the different participants worked together to co-ordinate disaster response by giving them practical experience of potential scenarios.

Source: Inmarsat