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STATUS OF GIS IN AFRICA

Dr. Derek Clarke
Chief Director,Chief Directorate,Surveys & Mapping,South Africa
dclarke@sli.wcape.gov.za


The developmental needs of Africa are well known as it battles to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, despite the numerous efforts by national and international development programmes.

It has also been shown that geo-spatial information plays a significant role in development planning (Clarke, 2007). If this is the case then what is the contribution of geo-spatial information and the geo-spatial technologies towards the development programmes in Africa? In an attempt to answer this question a perspective on the status of GIS in Africa is provided. A look is taken at the status of geospatial data, contributing standards and policies, and human and institutional capacity and arrangements. It is often said that Africa is poorly mapped, that is, there is a paucity of geo-spatial information. Without geo-spatial information it is not possible to begin to use GIS to analyse development needs and plan projects or to monitor the impact of development projects. To determine whether or not Africa is indeed poorly mapped two projects in the Mapping Africa for Africa initiative have recently been completed through the auspices of the Committee for Development Information's Subcommittee on Geo-information (CODI-Geo) - a structure of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA). The first project determined, through a user needs analysis, what geo-spatial data constitutes the fundamental geo-spatial datasets for Africa. The second project followed the first to then catalogue the available fundamental geo-spatial datasets in Africa - both incountry and external data holdings.



The geo-spatial datasets mentioned in Table 1 have been determined as the fundamental geo-spatial datasets required to support development in Africa, excluding any socio-economic datasets such as demographic data. The determination of the fundamental geo-spatial datasets for Africa is ground-breaking work and forms the basis of any further work on the collection and maintenance of geospatial data to support the development programmes in Africa. These datasets must be prioritized in any programmes or projects, whether at national, subregional or regional level. The results of the catalogue of available fundamental geo-spatial datasets in Africa has in part confirmed the fact that Africa is poorly mapped, but has also shown that in part there is a lot of this data available. Much of the data is unreliable in that it is either out of date, having being collected and mapped by the colonial powers prior to the country gaining independence, or is inaccurate. There is also an imbalance in the availability of different datasets, with some datasets, such as main roads and railways, being completed and for others being very poorly represented. Possible reasons for these results are that there is no significant, if any, programmatic approach to the collection and maintenance of these datasets at the national level, commercial enterprises who only collect those datasets with commercial value to trade with such data, and the collection of datasets by organisations that are not African governmental organisations, including donor agencies, who collect the data for a specific project and do not put in place any plans to either maintain that data or to hand it over to the relevant authority to add to the national asset of fundamental geo-spatial data. The lack of a programmatic approach to the collection and ongoing maintenance of these fundamental geo-spatial datasets is indicative of the state of many of the national mapping organisations (NMO) in Africa, which are poorly resourced in terms of human resources, budgets and equipment.



A summary of the extent of available fundamental geo-spatial datasets for African countries is given for a selected number of datasets in Table 2. Of the 54 African countries no contact could be established in the project for two countries, namely Angola and Western Sahara. For a further seven countries only external data sources were indicated, biasing the reports for those countries.


Figure 1.Distribution of available enumerator area datasets (Source: CODI-Geo, 2007)
Figure 1 shows a map of African countries where data on enumerator areas are available. This result is indicative of the extent for which reliable demographic data is available at the subnational level - another important dataset for development purposes.

In cataloguing the available fundamental geo-spatial datasets the metadata for these datasets was also collected. The study revealed that only five of the 30 datasets had complete metadata and 23 datasets had less than 30% of its metadata available. The lack of metadata is of great concern for the access to and sharing of geo-spatial data across organisations and applications. More effort is required to record the metadata at the same time as collecting the geo-spatial data. The lack of metadata can result in the duplication of the collection of geo-spatial data because of the unknown quality and reliability of that data.

This project highlighted what is probably the biggest challenge in the utilization of geo-spatial data, namely the difficulty in knowing what data exists and how to access it. A lot of time and effort is wasted due to not having the knowledge of the existence of these datasets. The savings that can result from eliminating duplication of data collection can be put to better use.

A gap analysis for each Africa country has been prepared based on the results of the cataloguing project. Each country can use this gap analysis to prioritise their collection of fundamental geo-spatial data. International organisations, including donor agencies, should also use this gap analysis. In some instances where fundamental geo-spatial datasets are available there are restriction on accessing and using such data. In some countries the military is the NMO and regard all topographic data and the geodetic control network as restricted. The cost of accessing and using the funda- mental geo-spatial data is another restriction. Data held by commercial entities must be purchased at great cost. A number of NMOs have also adopted a policy of selling their data as a means to generate funds - similar to the financial models used by NMOs in Europe and the UK. What these African NMOs forget is that the geo-spatial markets in Europe are more mature and that in their countries the main users of geo-spatial data are their own governments or consultants contracted by their government or foreign donor organisations. In a democratic developmental country the fundamental geo-spatial data should be collected and maintained as part of the government's developmental agenda and programmes. The collection and ongoing maintenance of geo-spatial data is problematic in those countries which are experiencing internal conflict.

Some areas are inaccessible to undertake the collection of geo-spatial data. In these areas it is necessary to resort to remotely sensed techniques, such as satellite imagery, but these have limitations for particular datasets.

The non-availability of modern geo-spatial technologies in most African countries is retarding the collection and maintenance of geo-spatial data and the subsequent processing and analyses of such data to provide the support for development planning and monitoring. In turn, the lack of available and accessible geospatial information that is reliable and up to date is limiting the full exploitation of these technologies, particularly geographical information systems (GIS). GIS is mostly proprietary software operating on moderately powerful computers. Such systems are (in the African context) expensive and funds are not easily available for the purchase of these systems. Furthermore, maintenance of the software and hardware is not available within many countries and it is not uncommon to find computers lying idle because of the maintenance problem. Free and open source systems are naturally very appealing to African countries, but how free is free?

In Africa this must mean low cost, otherwise it is of no benefit. The geo-spatial technologies must also take into account the scarcity of expertise in Africa. A further factor to consider is the lack of reliable electrical power supply in most places, or the absence thereof once you move away from the main urban centres. It is for these reasons that the technology used in Africa must be appropriate for the African situation. Donor organisations should take note of this and not impose technologies that will be underutilised and eventually abandoned because of maintenance difficulties. Undoubtedly as capacity building programmes reach more and more Africans they will become equipped to make full use of these technologies.

There is little evidence in the majority of African countries of the use of GIS by government departments in the execution of their functions. GIS is used mostly by international organisations or research groups for projects of particular interest to themselves and which are either limited in scope or are once-off type projects. This is not to say that there are no government officials who understand GIS or the value of such systems, it is just that most of them are at the technical level without sufficient decision-making power, there is not a critical mass of these people, there is no political support for these systems, and therefore there is insufficient resources to acquire and to operate these systems. Most of the technology standards are in place today and users do not have to worry about these. The standards that still need to be put in place are those relating to data and semantics. These standards are necessary to ease the effort of sharing data and understanding between organisations and between applications. Many applications extend beyond national borders and it is necessary to integrate datasets across national borders.

A number of African countries have developed various data standards but these may not be aligned with each other. The International Organisation on Standardisation (ISO) and Open GIS Consortium have developed and are continuing to develop standards for the geo-spatial information community. CODI-Geo is assisting in this regard by facilitating the development of key standards for the African continent.

The metadata standard is one such standard, where an African profile has been developed, in consultation with many African countries. Another effort at standardisation is the African Reference Project (AFREF) that has the objective of harmonizing the geodetic reference frames across Africa, providing a unique spatial referencing system across Africa.

National and regional policies are required to mandate the establishment of SDIs and give direction to SDI activities. Already a number of African countries are the proud owners of such national policies. To receive the required recognition for these policies countries are being encouraged by the UNECA to integrate these policies into the national information and communication (NICI) policies. The UNECA is assisting countries to achieve this, such as in Rwanda and Swaziland. Human resources capable of making a difference for an African country in its SDI activities are a major challenge. There are a number of individuals who have the necessary expertise and who are championing the cause of geo-spatial information and the power of the geo-spatial technologies, but to be effective there must be a critical mass of expertise in GIS in African countries. The local tertiary academic institutions often are unable to provide the people with required technological skills. The numbers that can be educated in this way are limited. To further complicate the situation, many of these people do not return to their home country because of better employment opportunities elsewhere. For those that do return many find themselves without the institutional support to use their knowledge.

The building of capacity within the appropriate organisations is the highest priority. Without the resources to undertake the work of developing policies, standards and organisational arrangements as well as sustainable data collection, African countries will not make any progress in establishing their NSDIs and exploiting the power of GIS. NMOs are traditionally regarded as the organisation responsible for the collection and maintenance of the fundamental geo-spatial information, through the traditional mapping programmes, and it is taken for granted that these organisations will be responsible for the NSDI. This could be a valid argument. However, many NMOs in Africa are illequipped to take the lead role in establishing the NSDI. The reasons for this include the fact that many of them are old establishments, positioned in central government and are steeped in tradition. The implications of this are that these organisations are structured in the old style civil service with strong bureaucracy and are very slow to change. The organisations are structured for the production of 'paper' maps and have not modernised their procedures. Usually these organisations are also responsible for the cadastral survey of the country, which often enjoys a higher priority. Where a country is involved in NSDI activity it is often found that the NMO has modernised and restructured to take advantage of the opportunities of the modern geo-spatial technologies. Visionary leadership is required to re-invent these bureaucratic monsters.

Politicians and senior management of government organisations lack awareness of the value of geo-spatial information and the importance of NSDI. SDI requires inter-organisational co-operation, with the contributing organisations to the SDI complementing each other. Such an interdependency organisational model will only happen with strong leadership. There should be no power games or struggles, with the leaders being big enough to remove themselves from such pettiness and creating the environment for their organisations to work together.

Without geo-spatial information there can be no effective development. It is time for African governments to recognise the fact that fundamental geo-spatial information is part of the national asset, underpinning its development programmes. This information must be turned into knowledge, using GIS and other geo-spatial technologies, for the betterment of Africa.

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