UAE Hands Over Chair of International Disaster Charter After 28 Satellite Activations

The charter is a group of space agencies that give satellite data to emergency responders free of charge when a major disaster strikes. The UAE was the first Arab country, and the first in the Middle East and Africa, to chair it. Its term ran from April 20 to October 19, 2026, and the handover took place at the charter's 56th board meeting in Tokyo in October. The European Space Agency supported the UAE with training and capacity building.

The chairmanship gave the UAE's young space sector a working role in an established disaster-response system. It also helped several UAE companies and universities register to supply the charter. This is the commercial and institutional side of the country's National Space Strategy 2031.

According to the agency, the charter was activated during the UAE's term for floods, earthquakes, wildfires, landslides, storms and volcanic activity in 18 countries across Asia, Africa, Europe, the Americas and Oceania. Members supplied more than 8,000 satellite data products, including archive images that let responders compare conditions before and after each event. Specialist analysts produced 457 analytical products to guide relief teams.

UAE organisations took part in 12 of those activations. The Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC), Space42, the Technology Innovation Institute and Tactica supplied satellite imagery, geospatial analysis, mapping and damage assessments.

The agency said that capacity will grow. MBRSC is working to make high-resolution optical imagery from its MBZ-SAT satellite available as a charter resource. Space42 is integrating its Foresight radar satellite constellation, which can capture images through cloud and at night. Together they would add UAE optical and radar data to future responses.

In April the agency held a training course in Abu Dhabi with ESA, MBRSC and Space42. Afterwards four UAE institutions were registered as value-adding producers, which turn raw satellite data into maps and information for responders: United Arab Emirates University, the Technology Innovation Institute, Space42 and the University of Sharjah.

The agency also took the work abroad. In August it ran a four-day regional programme in Accra, Ghana, funded by the UAE Agency for International Aid, for 30 trainees from Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Benin and Gambia. With France's space agency CNES, it helped Morocco's Royal Centre for Remote Sensing gain authorised user status in August, which lets Morocco trigger the charter directly. A similar application from Sierra Leone's National Disaster Management Agency, backed by the UAE agency and the UK Space Agency, is under formal review.

Ahmad Belhoul Al Falasi, minister of sports and chairman of the UAE Space Agency, said the charter had shown over more than 25 years the value of countries pooling space resources for humanitarian ends. He described the chairmanship as part of the UAE's commitment to being a reliable international partner. Salem Butti Al Qubaisi, the agency's director general, said the charter's effectiveness depended on satellite operators, analysts, disaster agencies and UN partners working as one system, and that the UAE's role had been to coordinate that work and draw more national institutions into it.

The charter received the International Astronautical Federation's 2026 World Space Award. Belhoul accepted it on the charter's behalf at the opening of the 77th International Astronautical Congress in Antalya, Turkey.