Africa: Experts Call for Adoption of Geospatial Technology
By Zachary Ochieng
NAIROBI---The 6th Africa Geospatial Forum opened in Nairobi Tuesday with a call to African countries to adopt geospatial technology to promote economic growth and development. In his opening remarks, Kenya’s Lands minister James Orengo said governments cannot do without the use of modern geospatial technology as it promotes long term economic development.
“In tandem with good governance practices, African governments must deploy geospatial technology in the management of land resources as it is very accurate and inexpensive”, said Orengo.
The minister said it is against this background that the ministry has embarked on the computerization of the lands records. He noted that in Kenya, geospatial technology is already being used successfully at the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), the Kenya Forestry Research Institute (KEFRI) and the Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD).
“Sustainable development calls for the use of geospatial technology in all sectors of the economy”, said RCMRD Director General Hussein Farah.
The three--day conference- -under the theme Enabling Socio-economic Development through Geospatial—is being held outside South Africa for the first time. It has brought together surveyors, remote sensing experts, land management experts and researchers, among others, to promote the use of geospatial technology.
Aida Opoku-Mensah, Director of ICT, Science and Technology Division at the UN Economic Commission for Africa noted that no meaningful development can take place in the absence of geospatial technology.
“We should not forget that geospatial technology has contributed to the decision making and knowledge based economy such as web-based Geographic Information System (GIS) and Google Earth. However, the full benefits are yet to be realized due to lack of awareness among policy makers”, Opoku-Mensah observed.
Among the challenges being faced include lack of harmonized geospatial data and lack of infrastructure to fully implement geospatial technology.
However, all is not lost. At KEFRI, for instance, GIS and remote sensing has effectively been used to improve the scope of forest research.
“The use of aerial photographs has proved valuable in the estimation of the volume of standing trees and the range of wildlife habitat management”, said Ben Chikamai, head of biometrics at KEFRI.