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Mapping Africa for Africa
Haggai Nyapola
Vice-President, International Cartographic Association
Chair, ICA Working Group on Mapping Africa for Africa
nypola2000@yahoo.com
Africa is a continent of 53 countries which are at various levels of economic development. The challenge facing most of the African countries today is to reduce poverty and achieve economic growth. Therefore, the need to have comprehensive programmes of national
mapping to facilitate, particularly the identification and development of natural resources cannot be over-emphasised. Mapping Africa for Africa (MAFA) is a new initiative basically intended to accelerate the pace of geo-information activities in Africa
At the meeting of Committee for Development Information, Geo-information sub-committee (CODI-Geo) held in Addis Ababa in May 2003, a proposed meeting was endorsed where African Countries represented by their National Mapping Organisations or organizations responsible for spatial data infrastructure would meet to discuss and agree upon a plan of action to provide the fundamental geo-spatial information/maps for sustainable development in support of various projects under NEPAD-"Mapping Africa for Africa" Initiative. This meeting took place on 14th August, 2003 in Durban, South Africa during the International Cartographic Association Conference.
Meeting on Mapping Africa for Africa
The meeting was held under the auspices of the International Cartographic Association and the Department of Land Affairs of the Republic of South Africa and was to discuss the role of Fundamental Spatial data in support of the NEPAD and the World Summit on Sustainable Development Plan of implementation. The meeting also deliberated on the following issues:
- That Africa is poorly mapped and only few African countries have maps covering their territories that can be used for national development purposes.
- That the African Union has adopted a new approach to addressing the developmental issues of Africa, through NEPAD.This calls on African Countries to take charge of the development of their countries and the African Continent. The projects to be executed within NEPAD will require relevant up to date maps or geo-spatial information.
- That the Committee for Development Information (CODI-Geo) a structure of the UN Economic Commission for Africa, has noted the severe lack of geo-spatial information in Africa over the years and has passed resolutions to strongly encourage African Governments to recognize the national mapping as a key national asset.
Durban Statement on "Mapping Africa for Africa"
The meeting came up with resolutions and recommendations popularly known as the Durban Statement on "Mapping Africa for Africa" whose details are as follows;
- The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), under the guidance of CODI- Geo, implements activities relating to the "Mapping Africa for Africa", in
collaboration with the International Cartographic Association (ICA) and other institutions and organizations.
- NEPAD Secretariat endorses and supports projects on "Mapping Africa for Africa"
- ICA creates a Commission or Working Group on "Mapping Africa for Africa"
- Promotion of public- private partnerships
- That a minimum threshold be set for in-country execution of geo-information projects to ensure development of institutional and human capacity
- To implement the resolution of CODI that each country should have frequent national level CODI meetings
- An inventory of existing geo-spatial datasets and resources in each country with associated metadata be undertaken
- Organizations and institutions should ensure that documents are made available in major languages
- To use regional centers and institutions to link up with countries to facilitate regional coordination
- That every country develops a national spatial reference framework that should be part of African Reference Framework (AFREF)
- That all countries participate in Global Mapping Project and other relevant regional and international initiatives
- That every country identifies its fundamental datasets, from which the consistent regional fundamental datasets should be derived, including geodetic framework, topography, land cover, boundaries and transportation
- That awareness of available datasets and potential uses be created to develop a user base and ensure a demand- driven approach to geo-information development
- That every development project proposal identifies upfront programmatic arrangements for continuous maintenance of resulting datasets at the conclusion of the project
- That every country develops or adopts mapping standards consistent with international standards
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