However, geospatial information services are currently provided by 'scattered' organizations that are difficult to access simultaneously to provide coherent set of services. African countries are going through a similar phase that many other countries have gone through in their GIS development whereby different sectors engage in GIS activities without coordination. An infrastructure approach, with institutional, regulatory and technical arrangements is required to coordinate the production, management and dissemination of geospatial information content in a manner that ensures that the decision makers, and the population at large, have access to such information when they need, where they need it, and in a form that they can use it easily.
The African preparatory meeting on the Global Geospatial Information Management (GGIM) closed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Wednesday 10 August with the adoption of the Addis Ababa declaration on geospatial information management in Africa. The three-day meeting recommended that African countries, the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the African Union Commission, should finalise and implement the African Action Plan on Geospatial Information Management.
The meeting was attended by delegates from African countries; the African Association of Remote Sensing of the Environment; AfricaScope; Centre d’Etudes, de Recherche et de Production en Information pour l’Environnement et le Developpement Durable (CERPINEDD); Environmental Information Systems Africa (EL-AFRICA), International Federation of Surveyors, FIG, GEODE, Ordnance Survey, Regional Centre for Training in Aerospace Surveys (RECTAS), Regional Centre for Mapping Resources for Development (RCMRD), Southern and Eastern African Mineral Centre, (SEAMIC).
The meeting agreed that ECA would continue to coordinate the global participation of African countries in GGIM activities through the African Regional Spatial Data Infrastructure (ARSDI).
Further information on the background of Global Geospatial Information Management (GGIM) can be found on: http://geoinfo.uneca.org/ggim/
<link fileadmin public-downloads news addis_ababa_declaration_on_gim_final1.pdf download file>Download of the Declaration (pdf)
