Expats & Diplomats
Korea, PH sign agreement to tackle PH air pollution

The Korean government, through the Korea International Cooperation Agency (Koica), and the Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA) signed a partnership agreement to strengthen national capacity to monitor the condition of air quality and improve air quality plans and policies in the Philippines on August 2.

The Pan-Asia Partnership for Geospatial Air Pollution Information and the Pandora Asia Network (PAPGAPI-PAN) project is a technology transfer, data-sharing and capacity building initiative on air pollution using data from the Geostationary Environment Monitoring Spectrometer (GEMS) aboard Korea's GEO-KOMPSAT-2B satellite complemented by ground-based remote sensing instruments called Pandora. Launched by the Republic of Korea in February 2020, GEMS is the world's first geostationary satellite sensor for air quality monitoring. This technology enables hourly monitoring of air pollution levels in almost 20 countries in Asia, including the Philippines.