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September 2003 |
Roadmap to SDI in Africa
Experts resident in 13 countries in Africa participated in the review meeting convened in Addis Ababa. The composition of the group reflected not only a geographical spread, but also diverse sectors. There were representatives of mapping and environmental agencies from public and private sector.
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The SDI guide
The chapters compiled through this process, which in some measure reflect the experience of SDI implementers in Africa to date, and will form the core of the first edition of the guide, are the following:
- Explaining SDI concepts: the need to be able to communicate SDI ideas effectively to people who have not had experience in managing digital geographic information was well understood. Participants contributed explanations and analogies they had used in communicating about SDI within their countries.
- Assessing the status and environment of the geospatial sector in a country: The identification of spatial data producers and users, their current practices and future requirements, has constituted the first step in many African countries towards establishing an SDI strategy. Several questionnaires used by countries in conducting surveys on current data usage and data needs, will be available on-line, as part of the guide.
- Organisational framework: The institutional arrangements and organizational frameworks for SDI, which have been adopted by various African countries, are presented in the chapter.
- Policy: Examples of how various countries have addressed the issues of data custodianship, data discovery and data maintenance in their policies are provided within this chapter.
- Getting started: This chapter aims to provide SDI implementers with guidance on first implementation steps. The chapter is illustrated using examples of how SDI initiatives began in a variety of African countries, highlighting the first steps taken, early successes and lessons learnt. These country examples demonstrate a variety in the factors triggering SDI development. They also illustrate that some countries began with developing tangible outputs, such as clearinghouses or web access to data, while others chose by framing policy or institutional arrangements.
- Funding mechanisms for SDI implementation: That sustainable financing for SDI is vital for long-term SDI development. Several countries contributed their experiences of the difficulties with initiating SDI programmes through externally funded projects.
Apart from serving to guide SDI implementers, the first edition of the guide will also provide a picture of the status of SDI development in Africa. Some gaps are evident: for instance, there are not many examples of data standards, which have been implemented to facilitate wider data usage, to include in the guide at present. Some country contributors commented that they felt that their SDI efforts were still in a very early phase, making it difficult to provide even simple analyses of impact and success factors at this stage.
Looking to the future
It is anticipated that the development of the SDI guide will be highlighted at various meetings, such as Africa GIS '03. This is intended to serve not only to publicise the guide to potential users, but also to elicit critique and further input. With SDI initiatives in Africa increasing in number and scope, there will be more resource materials generated, which can be shared. "SDI Africa: an implementation guide" is far from complete - and never will be, just as an infrastructure is never complete. But, we have produced a guide, are on the learning curve, and know there are plenty of willing learners, convinced that the long term effort required for building SDI is worthwhile. Perhaps there is now a critical mass of SDI advocates across the continent, to ensure ongoing progress.. Through consolidating expertise now available in Africa, for Africa, through initiatives such as the SDI guide, perhaps we will see accelerating SDI development in Africa.
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