1. High level conference « Space for the African Citizen »
Perspectives on Space Technology for Africa’s socio-economic development
United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
ICT and Sciences & Technology Division (ISTD)
Makane Faye
Officer-in-charge, Section
-29
High level conference « Space for the African Citizen »
16 September 2010, Brussels

2. Outline
Introduction
Space Technology & Applications for socio-economic development
UNECA’s support to African countries on exploitation of Space technology for socio-economic development
The African ICT Ministers Abuja Declaration & Recommendations
The Committee on Development Information, Science and Technology (CODIST)
Challenges on Space Technology and Applications in Africa
The Way Forward

3. Introduction
Globalization and the emerging new global economy put emphasis on information as an economic asset
A major imperative in each African country is the commitment to deliver relevant information that could promote and sustain socio- economic development
Within its programme of Harnessing Information for Development, UNECA supports Member States in the exploitation of spatially enabled information technologies for decision-making at all levels through advisory services, capacity building and development of common resources and online repositories.

4. Space Technology & Applications for Socio-economic development
Geospatial technology is critical to the development of the Knowledge Economy and an equitable Information Society
Its importance lies on the fact that Location affects nearly everything we do in life and is also at the heart of some of the world’s most pressing problems
Need for Africa to acquire orbital locations to facilitate acquisition of data & development of suitable space applications
Service delivery industries that depend on location and spatial knowledge benefit from reduced transaction costs, thus, leading to up scaling of economic activities contributing to socio-economic development

5. Space Technology & Applications for Socio-economic development (ctd)
Examples
Food Security
Land cover, soil, topography, hydrography, rainfall, demographics, infrastructure, yield, production etc.
Water Supply
Hydrography, topography, aquifers, waterbodies, land cover, soil types, vegetation, rainfall, etc.
Resources Management
Ecosystems, biodiversity, vegetation, land cover, soils, water, wetlands, biomass etc.
Drought
Rainfall, temperature, evapo-transpiration, wind, aerosols etc.
All the information products exemplified would not be complete without the location attribute
They need to be localized:
Where are the features located?
Where are the population involved in an activity, vis-à-vis location of the activity?
Who will benefit from an activity or event ? Or at risk? Where are they?
Where are the markets for the products? The input factors?
Where are the infrastructure elements, utilities, etc?
What areas are suitable (or unsuitable) for specific activities or events?
How do we move (people, products, services) from source to destination?

6. Space Technology & Applications for Socio-economic development (ctd)
Examples (ctd)
Security and Emergency
Land cover, soil chemistry, topography, geology, mining, utilities, settlements, transport infrastructure, flood, etc.
Health Planning
Hospitals locations, settlements and demographics, disease vectors, environmental factors distribution, etc.
E-Services for socio-economic development
Telecom, market prices, demographics, e-edcuation, e-health, e-government, e-commerce, etc.
All the information products exemplified would not be complete without the location attribute
They need to be localized:
Where are the features located?
Where are the population involved in an activity, vis-à-vis location of the activity?
Who will benefit from an activity or event ? Or at risk? Where are they?
Where are the markets for the products? The input factors?
Where are the infrastructure elements, utilities, etc?
What areas are suitable (or unsuitable) for specific activities or events?
How do we move (people, products, services) from source to destination?

7. More examples on use of Space Technology for for Socio-economic development
Various sectors of the economy benefit significantly from access to Spatial Applications, including:
Communications in general;
location/mobile services;
travel and tourism;
National defence;
Environmental modelling; etc.
370 million Africans subscribed to mobiles in 2009
Most of the mobile are now embedded with spatial applications such as GPS and street maps
Web-based GIS technology is also widely used in Africa

8. UNECA Vision on Space Technology and Applications
Our Vision is to generate, share and disseminate knowledge:
By ensuring that spatial data permeates every aspect of society and that they are available to people who need them, when they need them, and in a form that they can use them to make decisions with minimal pre-processing
By ensuring that generated information is put to the maximum possible uses by publicising their existence and making them easily available to the widest possible audience

9. Selected on-going activities
The African Regional Spatial Data Infrastructure
Adopt cooperative, multi-stakeholder approach to production, management, and dissemination of spatially enabled data: Regional and National level
Improve regional scale development decision-making
The African Geodetic Reference Frame (AFREF) Project
A scientific project using modern satellite based positioning with aim to To determine a continental reference system for Africa and to establish continuous, permanent GNSS base stations to ensure that data is freely available to all African nations
The Mapping Africa for Africa (MAfA) Initiative
Based on the Durban Statement, it is a plan of action to provide the fundamental geo-spatial information for sustainable development in support of regional projects

10. Development of Interoperability & Standards: The Common Geodetic Reference (AFREF)
Network of permanent GNSS base stations (CORS) covering the whole continent
At least one in every country
Eventually, everywhere in Africa less than km from a base station.
Salient Features
5 GPS CORS Stations being installed in African Sub regions
30 GPS Reference Stations to be installed, depending on availability of funds
On-going inventory of existing and planned GNSS base stations in African countries

11. Development of Interoperability & Standards: The Harmonized Administrative Boundary
Second Administrative Level Boundary (SALB)
Produce a comprehensive digital database of Second Administrative Level Boundaries
Provide a flexible and intuitive coding scheme that can be applied to any country, independently from administrative structure
an international borders template developed by the UN Cartographic Section in order to be able to create a global data set that is cross-boundary
an editing protocol in order to insure the comparability between the countries
a coding scheme for the identification of each administrative unit through time and space
a metadata profile that is associated with the information
a validation process of all the information by an official entity (generally the National Mapping Agency

12. Creation of Regional Databases
TheTransport Infrastructure Database (TIDB)
The segments of the trans-African highway have been entered, together with proposed priority transport infrastructure projects of the various regional economic communities and specialized technical organizations. (
Programme of Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA)
The database covers all existing and planned infrastructure facilities in the continent. A compendium of maps was generated from the database and customized as an interactive digital atlas. (
The African Fiber optic connectivity data base
Describes international Sea connectivity and current as well as planned connections within and between African countries. An African fiber optic map was generated. (

13. The Trans African Highways

15. e-Services Delivery (Clearinghouse Services)
To use data produced by another person/agency, potential users need to know:
That the data resource exists
How the data was produced
How to access the data
The metadata collections are best maintained
By the producers of the data
As an integral part of the data production process
But they should be accessible to potential users
Always available and easy to access
Result: on-line metadata clearinghouse services
Search and discover what exists, where and how to access
Publish and advertise what you have and do
Field level, location and other criteria- based searches

16. e-Services Delivery (Online Mapping)
Exploit the vast opportunities provided by the Web
Make it easy and rapid to search, and access geospatial information from multiple locations
Enable standards and interoperable web-based exploitation of Geodata
Develop value-add products and services
Decentralized Mapping…
Previously unthinkable map themes now common at demand:
Visualizing MDG Progress
Dynamic maps and Statistics…

17. Meeting of African ICT Ministers, August 2010
3rd ordinary session of the African Union ICT Ministers, held in Abuja, Nigeria, from 6-7 August 2010, adopted The Abuja 2010 Declaration, which requests the AU Commission to, enter alia, :
Conduct a feasibility study on the establishment of the African Space Agency and develop an African Space Policy in cooperation with the Regional Economic Communities (RECs), the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

18. Meeting of African ICT Ministers, August 2010 (ctd)
Also the ministers endorsed the following recommendations from the experts:
Undertake awareness raising campaigns for policy makers;
Promote the use of African Regional Centres of Excellence to build the capacity of Member States;
Provide appropriate input to African members of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space; (COPUOS), in order to better take into account Africa’s concerns and needs, especially on Disaster Management, Emergency Response and peaceful use of satellite imagery;
Improve communication and coordination among existing initiatives in African countries.

19. Regional Coordination: CODIST
Committee on Development Information, Science and Technology
UNECA’s parliamentary body to provide technical advice on, and oversight over the ICT, Science & Technology sub programme
Reports to the African Ministers of Finance and Economic Development
Meets every two years
Official delegates are government official in areas of geographic information, space, ICT, Science and Technology
Governments encouraged to include wide representation of all stakeholders in their delegations
Observers from Private Sector, Academia, NGOs and non-African officials and industry partners

20. Challenges on Space Technology & Applications in Africa
Communication infrastructure not yet fully developed to support remote access to data and services
Data not available at appropriate scale, and they are not up to date
Human capacity: lack of critical mass and retention of staff
Computing resources not always available
Awareness raising: decision-makers not aware of space benefits
Policy environment not yet developed 20

21. The Way Forward
Implement the Abuja 2010 Declaration and Recommendations
African Stakeholders and decision-makers to capitalize on the regularly organized Committee on Development Information, Science and Technology
UNECA & technical African organizations to secure funding from the EU to provide technical support to the AU for implementing the Abuja Declaration and the Experts recommendations 21

22. Thank you