The Pan-African Atlas Project Makane Faye UN Economic Commission for Africa

Background  UNECA is continuously working on analytical and advisory activities to support Member States  places emphasis on the building of the African Regional Spatial Data Infrastructure for (ARSDI).  involves establishing coordination mechanisms as well as interoperability and data sharing arrangements with partners, including nodes at national and sub-regional levels

 ECA has been assisting member states in laying out foundations for their national SDIs, in formulating spatial policies, e-strategies, etc.  Also ECA focuses in developing information and knowledge resources, applications and services that improve availability and use of spatially-enabled information for development at the national, regional and sub-regional levels.  Several regional geospatial databases are being developed by ECA to support regional initiatives, which will form the core set of data for the African Regional Spatial Data Infrastructure. Background (Cont..)

The Rationale for Pan-African Atlas  Africa is known for its vulnerability to disaster and climate related risks.  The continent is also facing major challenges such as water scarcity, energy shortage, environmental stress and food crisis, as well as climate change, which affect citizens, business and the community at large.  These are due to diverse effects such as disasters and climate extremes combined with other development-related changes, such as food insecurity, conflict, high unemployment rate and rapid urbanization,

 One of the priority areas to achieve the MDG ’ s goal on poverty eradication is to make agriculture environmentally sustainable through sound natural resource management.  This requires research into food production focusing on drought resistant crops, adaptability to climate change and sustainable soil and water resource management. The Rationale for Pan-African Atlas (Cont..)

 The United Nations Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) as one of its objectives to assisting developing countries in using space technology for development has been working in awareness raising and capacity building in Africa.  In its resolution 61/110 of 14 December 2006, the UN General Assembly agreed to establish the "United Nations Platform for Space-based Information for Disaster Management and Emergency Response (UN- SPIDER)" as a new United Nations programme, with the following mission statement: " Ensure that all countries and international and regional organizations have access to and develop the capacity to use all types of space-based information to support the full disaster management cycle".  Since then UN-SPIDER has been working in disaster risk management. The Rationale for Pan-African Atlas (Cont..)

 The Regional Workshop titled “ The Space-based Solutions for Disaster Management and Emergency Response in Africa ”, organized from 6-9 July 2010 in Addis Ababa, by UN-SPIDER in cooperation with UNECA was a stimulus towards promoting access for African countries to the use of space-based applications and solutions.  To this end, the two divisions, UNECA and The Institute Of Global Mapping and Research (IGM) of The European Academy Of Sciences And Arts have decided to cooperate to build capacity of African Member States and organizations through development of a Pan-African Atlas based on sound and reliable data targeting African development challenges and climate related information. The Rationale for Pan-African Atlas (Cont..)

 AARSE 2010 Conference, which was conducted in Addis Ababa, from October, had come up with recommendations, which also point out the need to use Earth Observation to address some of the economic development challenges in the continent including: Environmental monitoring, agricultural development, food and water security, climate change mitigation, water resources management, energy resources, disaster risk management, health, geo-information governance and commerce, etc. The Rationale for Pan-African Atlas (Cont..)

 the use of Geo-information and Geospatial technology as a decision support is of paramount importance in tackling the challenges that the continent is facing through the provision of timely and reliable data and information for decision making.  Therefore, the main focus on the Atlas will be in areas of land and water related data addressing issues such as food security, land degradation, water management, as well as disaster risk management and climate change adaptation. The Rationale for Pan-African Atlas (Cont..)

General Objective of the Project  To establish a data warehouse accessible continent-wide with nodes in sub-regions, centers of excellence, national focal points and the academic community, to support research, training and decision making on the continent.

Specific objectives  To develop a database for Africa wide land and water related data in order to provide rich information for research on disaster management and risk reduction and in Climate change adaptation and mitigation for decision making.  Produce a Pan-African atlas accessible to all member states  Provide geospatial products and services for easy access to all citizens of Africa  Contribute to UNSDI

Methodology  The Pan-African Atlas will be composed of datasets covering a wide range of socio- economic issues from land cover to population dynamics, infrastructure as well as disaster and climate risks.  online tools and shared databases which will provide downloadable data, images and maps at local, national, sub-regional and regional scales.  Pan-African Atlas and database will be used for research and as a training tool for scientists and as awareness raising resource and tool for policy and decision makers.

 The project will therefore use the following methods to achieve the above mentioned objectives: Methodology (Cont..) Conduct awareness creation workshops/consultations Conduct inventory of existing databases, e-atlases, etc. related to the project Collect datasets from different organizations (Government, NGO, Private,…) from different nations

To develop a database for Africa wide data Perform data analysis, and mapping Produce a Pan-African atlas accessible to all member states and partners Capacity building in terms of training, institutional capacity, policy formulation, etc. Methodology (Cont..)

Opportunities  Several initiatives are on the ground in Africa, which we can build on, including national SDIs, Regional databases, etc..  Some of these opportunities and existing initiatives are: UNSPIDER and its Regional support offices, African Regional centers of Exc. (such as RCMRD, RECTAS, ) Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA), Several applications developed by ECA to support the process

Potential Benefits for Member States  Capacity of member states will be enhanced in the use of geospatial products and services.  The atlas will enable decision making in areas of natural resource management, water resource management, infrastructure development, disaster risk management, climate change adaptation, etc.  Facilitate risk mapping for prevention and preparedness purpose, disaster management and risk reduction, as well as mitigation of climate change impacts.

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