United Nations Economic Commission for Africa

1
CODIST.1 - Report on Executive Working Group
Activities

• United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
• ICT and Sciences Technology Division (ISTD)
• Geo-information Systems Section (GiSS)
• Sives Govender
• (on behalf of the Chairs of the WGs)

Geo-Information Sub-Committee - Addis Ababa, 28
April 1 May 2009
2
Outline

• Working Group on AFREF
• Working Group on Standards
• Working Group on Fundamental Datasets
• Working Group on Capacity Building
• Challenges Conclusions

3
Introduction

• The report includes actions and work programme
  undertaken by the WGs as a follow-up to
  resolutions adopted by CODI 5 and other
  activities considered as being of interest to
  member States and partners.
• The activities focused on
• Policy issues,
• Technical issues,
• Capacity building,
• International cooperation and liaison

4
Working Group on AFREF

• Compiled by Dr. Hussein Farah, RCMRD
• The activities are focused on
• Capacity Building Workshops and Training
• Implementation Plan
• Implementation Status

5
Concept

• A unified geodetic reference frame for Africa to
  be the fundamental basis for the national and
  regional three-dimensional reference networks
  fully consistent and homogeneous with the
  International Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF)

6
Two Levels

• A network of Continuous Operation GNSS Reference
  Stations (CORS) spread all over Africa
• At least one in every country
• GNSS based National geodetic networks, including
  both active and passive stations

7
The International Steering Committee

• Working group on AFREF set up by Executive
  Working Group of CODIST-Geo
• Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for
  Development (RCMRD), represented by the Director
  General, Co-Chair
• African Organisation of Cartography and Remote
  Sensing (AOCRS), represented by the Secretary
  General, Co-Chair
• Regional Centre For Training In Aerospace Surveys
  (RECTAS), the Executive Director
• Representative of the North African (sub)
  Reference Frame (NAFREF) Tunisia, Head of
  National Surveys Mapping Organisation
• East African Reference Frame (EAFREF),
  represented by Tanzania, Director of Surveys
  Mapping
• West African Reference Frame (WAFREF),
  represented by Nigeria, Surveyor General of the
  Federation
• Southern African Reference Frame (SAFREF),
  represented by Namibia, Director of Surveys
  Mapping
• Central African Reference Frame (CAFREF),
  represented by Congo Republic, Directeur, Centre
  de Recherche Géographique et du Production
  Cartographique.
• This working group plus the Chair of the
  International Association of Geodesy, sub
  commission on Reference Frames, Africa (SC 1.3d),
  constitutes the International Steering Committee
  on AFREF (ISCA).

8
Achievement

• AFREF achievement since CODI V (2007)

9
Workshops and Training

• Two training sessions of two weeks duration on
  AFREF and GNSS data processing were held at
  Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for
  Development (RCMRD), Kenya in August 2007 and
  August 2008.
• Objective to equip geodesist with practical
  skills in the establishment and operation of
  Continuous Operating Reference Stations.
• Participants from nine countries Ethiopia,
  Malawi, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Niger, South
  Africa, Tanzania and Zambia.
• Presentations on AFREF were made during
• AARSE conference held in Ghana in October 2008
• The International Symposium on GNSS, Space-Based
  and Ground-Based Augmentation Systems and
  Applications held in Germany, November 2008
• Africa Array meeting held in South Africa June
  2008
• Trimble Dimensions conference held in November
  2007 in the USA.

10
Website and Newsletter

• The AFREF website was created in May 2006
  (http//geoinfo.uneca.org/afref). UNECA continues
  to maintain and update the website. All papers
  and presentations relating to AFREF and the CFP
  are available on the site.
• The quarterly AFREF newsletter continued to be
  published regularly by the AFREF secretariat at
  RCMRD. The objective of the newsletter is to
  create a forum for discussions and exchange of
  information and experiences in the implementation
  of AFREF project. Six editions of the Newsletter
  were published during the reporting period as
  follows Two editions in 2007, three editions in
  2008 and one in 2009.

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Implementation Plan

• An implementation plan for the AFREF project was
  completed and sent to donors for funding.
• The proposal was endorsed for support by the
  AU-EC 8th Priority Action and Joint Strategy.
  Implementation is expected to start in the next
  year. The main goals associated with the project
  are to
• Establish a network of permanent GPS reference
  stations that will define the African Reference
  Frame for practitioners to use for position
  determination, and forming part of the global
  geodetic infrastgructure. The stations will
  conform to IGS standards, continuously collecting
  data and transmitting same to relevant data
  processing centres.
• Establish a network of regional data processing
  centres to receive data from stations in their
  respective regions, process them and transmit the
  processed data to a designated main data
  processing and archiving facility.
• Establish a data archiving and dissemination
  facility to compute parameters for the African
  reference frame and disseminate same continuously
  to users.
• Compute the parameters of the African Reference
  Frame.
• Support Countries to align national coordinate
  systems. to AFREF
• Establish a network of Geodesists sharing lessons
  and working together to realize the objectives of
  the AFREF project, extend and densify the
  network, and continuously compute and disseminate
  improvements and corrections to the parameters of
  the African reference frame.

12
Implementation Status

• The demonstration phase of AFREF has started in
  2007.
• The objective of this phase is to show the
  installation, operation, data dissemination and
  analysis capabilities.
• The following countries have already established
  at least one Continuous Operation GNSS Reference
  Stations (CORS)
• Algeria, Egypt, Mozambique, Ghana, Kenya, Benin,
  Morocco, South Africa, Namibia, Zambia, Ivory
  Coast, Uganda, Malawi, Ethiopia, Mozambique,
  Nigeria, Mauritius, Tanzania, Cameroon.
• Two CORS were donated by Leica Geosystems and
  were installed in Kenya and Nigeria.
• Trimble Navigations donated five CORS and have
  been installed in Tanzania, Niger, DRCongo and
  Ethiopia.
• Some data from the established CORS is already
  being received by HartRAO data Centre in South
  Africa and the International GNSS Service (IGS).
• The next phase is to densify the CORS and
  realize the Africa Reference Frame that can be
  adapted by African Countries.
• Methodologies and strategies for computing the
  Africa Reference Frame were discussed during the
  pre-CODIST Workshop on AFREF Implementation Plan.

13
AFREF Workshop Outcomes

• Held on 28 April 2009
• Recommendations will be presented by Chair of WG
  at a later session.

14
Working Group on Fundamental Datasets

• Compiled by Dr. D. Clarke, Chief Director CDSM
  (South Africa)
• The activities are focused on
• Capacity Building Workshops and Training
• Implementation Plan
• Implementation Status

15
Catalogue of Fundamental Geospatial Datasets

• At the previous CODI-Geo meeting held in April
  2007 the WG on Fundamental Datasets submitted a
  draft report on the Catalogue of Fundamental
  Geo-spatial Datasets for Africa.
• It was requested that comments be provided on the
  draft report.
• No subsequent comments were received

16
Meetings and Collaboration

• The WG held a joint meeting with the ICA WG on
  Mapping Africa for Africa on 27 August 2008, in
  Cape Town. At this meeting
• The report on the Catalogue of Fundamental
  Geo-spatial Datasets for Africa was reviewed and
  approved.
• The catalogue of fundamental geo-spatial datasets
  had been loaded on the geo-portal of UNECA. But
  the UNECA geo-portal was not working.
• It was decided that the Country Gap Analysis
  reports, should be sent out to each country.
• The next phase of work in terms of the project
  plan, namely the best practices guidelines,
  should be commenced. The first task will be to
  describe the framework for the guideline

17
Next Steps

• Guidelines of Best Practice
• In an effort to start the process of defining
  what the content of the Guidelines of Best
  Practice should be, an assessment of the various
  challenges facing countries in the acquisition,
  maintenance and dissemination of fundamental
  geo-spatial datasets was undertaken. A
  questionnaire survey was used for this purpose.
  The initial response to the questionnaire was
  very low and no significant results can be drawn
  from the responses. The questionnaire was
  circulated to all African mapping organizations
  and through the Global Spatial Data
  Infrastructure. It is hoped that further
  responses will be obtained during this CODIST-Geo
  meeting.
• A draft (1.2) of the contents of the Guidelines
  of Best Practice has been prepared and will be
  presented for discussion and comments during
  CODIST Geo.
• The WG on Fundamental Datasets and the ICAs WG
  on Mapping Africa for Africa continue to work
  well together, having joint meetings whenever
  possible.
• The following meeting to take place in November
  in Santiago, Chile coinciding with the ICAs
  International Cartographic Conference.

18
Working Group on Standards

• Compiled by Sives Govender, Executive Director,
  EIS-AFRICA and Antony Cooper, Operating Unit
  Fellow, CSIR (South Africa)
• The activities are focused on
• African metadata profile of ISO 19115
• Participation in international standards
  activities (ISO TC 211)
• Key standards for future consideration support
  the development of Fundamental Geospatial
  datasets and the Mapping Africa for Africa
  Initiative (MAfA).

19
African metadata profile of ISO 19115

• The starting point for the African metadata
  profile is the set of core metadata elements in
  ISO 19115, whether they are mandatory,
  conditional or optional. All the entities in the
  core have been unraveled to identify what the
  actual metadata elements were.
• These core metadata elements have been included
  in a matrix to illustrate the structure of the
  core (this matrix is attached to full report).
• All the metadata elements in the matrix have been
  illustrated using the metadata for South Africa's
  150 000 national mapping series, as the metadata
  was readily available, provided metadata for most
  of the metadata elements (there was not metadata
  for some of the optional elements), and was for
  an African dataset series that should be familiar
  to most geo-information experts in Africa.. (this
  document as been attached to full report)

20
Metadata tools

• A review committee was formed during CODI V to
  evaluate tools currently available for compiling
  and viewing metadata, with the aim of having an
  open source tool readily available that supports
  the African metadata profile.
• UN ECA has acquired, tested and deployed
  GeoNetwork opensource, a standards-based, free
  and open source catalogue application developed
  initially by FAO.
• It provides metadata editing and search
  functions, and an embedded interactive web map
  viewer.
• GeoNetwork opensource provides a decentralized
  environment enabling access to geo-referenced
  data bases, cartographic products and related
  metadata from a variety of sources.
• See http//geonetwork-opensource.org/
• UN ECA has used GeoNetwork opensource to deliver
  a short course in Sierra Leone on metadata
  creation, dissemination and discovery.
• However, more experience is required with
  GeoNetwork opensource before definitively
  recommending it as a suitable metadata tool for
  Member States.
• As GeoNetwork opensource supports ISO 19115, it
  will support the African metadata profile of ISO
  19115.
• However, GeoNetwork opensource will not yet have
  a template that will allow the user to restrict
  the metadata fields they see to just those of the
  African metadata profile of ISO 19115.

21
Participation in international standards
activities

• ISO/TC 211
• The Technical Committee within the International
  Organization for Standardization (ISO) developing
  standards for geographical information, in the
  ISO 19100 series.
• ISO/TC 211 has published 29 International
  Standards, 5 Technical Specifications and 3
  Technical Reports. It also has 16 active
  projects developing new standards or
  specifications, and a further 7 amending or
  revising existing standards and specifications.
• ISO/TC 211 is a very active committee, with 31
  Participating Members (P-members) and 31
  Observing Members (O-members).
• Members from Africa are
• P-members Morocco and South Africa.
• O-members Kenya, Mauritius, Tanzania and
  Zimbabwe.
• South Africa has been the only active African
  country participating in ISO/TC 211, attending
  all the Plenaries since 1998 (with over 25
  delegates over the years), contributing to the
  development of standards.
• ISO/TC 211 also has 28 Class A Liaisons these
  are international organizations that also
  participate in ISO/TC 211. They include agencies
  of the United Nations, international scientific
  unions and industry organizations.
• The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
  (UN ECA) became a Class A Liaison in 2005. The
  current liaisons from UN ECA are Chukwudozie
  Ezigbalike, Paul Belanger, and Antony Cooper.
• ISO/TC 211 meetings enjoy very good participation
  and hopefully, participation by African experts
  will increase in the near future. The 28th
  Plenary of ISO/TC 211 is scheduled for Molde,
  Norway, on 28 and 29 May 2009.

22
Key standards for future consideration support
the development of Fundamental Datasets and
(MAfA)

• ISO/TC 211 has begun developing standards for
  application domains, which will touch directly on
  the work of users, as these standards deal more
  with data issues than system issues.
• In considering the fundamental data sets for
  Africa, the following are key standards
• The Metadata The best known ISO/TC 211 standard
  is ISO 191152003, Geographic information
  Metadata
• Quality There are three standards from ISO/TC
  211 dealing with quality ISO 19113 2002,
  Geographic information Quality principles, ISO
  191142003, Geographic information Quality
  evaluation procedures, and ISO/TS 191382006,
  Geographic information Data quality measures.
• Cataloguing or classification The two relevant
  standards are ISO 191102005, Geographic
  information Methodology for feature
  cataloguing, and ISO 19126, Geographic
  information Feature concept dictionaries and
  registers
• Essential climate variables (ECVs) ISO 19144-1,
  Geographic information Classification systems
  Part 1 Classification system structure. ISO
  19144-2, Geographic information Classification
  Systems Part 2 Land Cover Classification
  System LCCS.
• Land administration A new ISO/TC 211 project is
  ISO 19152, Geographic information Land
  Administration Domain Model (LADM), which is
  developing common terminology and a framework
  model for land administration, bridging the
  cadastre, deeds, land ownership and land tenure,
  both formal and informal.

23
Outlook

• For the Working Group on Standards to
  realistically deliver on its mandate it is
  imperative that dedicated funding be sourced to
  cover the costs in attending Standards meeting as
  well as to develop African profiles of the ISO
  standards to support FDS and MAfA.
• The WG on Standards will work closely with the WG
  on FDS to look at priority standards and
  profiling these for Africa.
• The WG on Standards need more volunteers to join
  the Standards WG.
• South Africa is considering hosting ISO TC 211 in
  the second half of 2010.

24
Working Group on Capacity Building

• Compiled by RCMRD RECTAS (Dr. Farah Dr. Dr.
  Isi Ikhuoria)
• The activities are focused on
• Education and Training
• Research and Development
• Capacity building (Infrastructure)
• Advisory services
• Conferences and Workshops
• AARSE was given membership to the WG at CODI 5.

25
Education and Training

• Diploma Courses
• Joint RECTAS-ITC M.Sc. in Geoinformatics
• Other Joint Programmes
• RECTAS-Obafemi Awolowo University M.Sc. in Remote
  Sensing/GIS
• RECTAS/University of Abomey-Calvi MSc
• RECTAS/University of Benin MSc Programme

26
Education and Training

• During the last two year, over 700 professionals
  were trained at RCMRD
• The type of geoinformation training courses
  offered varies from Basic to Advanced
• Regular programmes
• GIS and cartography
• RS and photogrammetry
• Database management
• Integrated water resource management (RCMRD/itc
  Addis Ababa and Egerton Universities joint
  course)
• GPS
• LIMS
• IT
• Tailor made programmes
• On water management
• Forest mapping
• Environmental impact assessment
• Disease mapping
• Health Information Management System
• Hydrographic Surveying

27
Research and Development

• RECTAS
• Consultancy Projects.
• Short courses.
• Advisory Services.

28
Research and Development

• RCMRD
• Lake Victoria water level and quality monitoring
  tool development
• Assessment of Groundwater vulnerability to
  pollution in the Kenyan Rift Valley
• Computation of transformation parameters
• Flood forecasting and monitoring Modeling
• Establishment of continuous GPS operation station
• Determination and monitoring of crustal movement
  across the Great East African Rift Valley
• Modeling for probabilistic Tsetse fly
  distribution and prediction mapping

29
Capacity building (infrastructure)

• Geonetwork (FAO Node) established
• Data and metadata uploading and dissemination
  Server and software facility
• WFP (world Food Programme) Node established
• Data and Server system for continuously
  disseminating food security assessment data
  through web
• DDS (Data Dissemination System) established
• Antenna and Server system that enable receiving
  MERIS, ASAR and ATSAR data (every six hours)
• Geonetcast receiving and transmission station
  established
• Antenna and Server system that enables receiving
  MSG (MeteoSat Second Generation) data and derived
  products every 15, 30 minutes and one hour
• SERVIR-Africa regional infrastructure established
• Web, data and application servers were acquired
  and installed
• Data archiving facilities with big capacity (gt60
  Terabyte) was acquired
• Geospatial data portal under development
• SDI-Africa monthly Newsletter produced by RCMRD

30
Advisory services

• Advisory services were provided to member States
• Hardware and Software Selection
• Satellite data selection, acquisition and supply
• Project proposal development
• Flood forecasting and monitoring training and
  development of prediction model
• Development of training curriculum for member
  States
• Recruitment of geoinformation professionals
• Establishment of NSDI, development of policy
• Establishment of continuous GPS operation station

31
Conferences and Workshops

• Accra, Ghana Capacity building session during
  AARSE 2008
• AOCRS Workshop on Geographic Names
• Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
• May 2009, Nairobi, Kenya
• Other workshops and training activities organized
  by RECTAS and RCMRD are reported in the Regional
  Centres report

32
Comments

• We invite you to participate in the WG
  activities.
• Our joint goal is to promote the use of quality
  geospatial information to support sustainable
  development in Africa.
• NSDI must be (re)developed.
• We must reach out to our sister Ministries and
  assist them make sound decisions based on
  geo-information intelligence.
• We can use the AfricaGIS conference to continue
  the work of CODIST.

33
Conclusions

• Thank you to ECA (Aida, Andre, Paul, Dozie et.
  Al)
• Thank you Chairs and members of the Working
  Groups.
• Thank you to all the CODIST Geo participants on
  behalf of the EWG.
• We invite you to participate in the WG activities
  because together we can make a difference and
  show tangible results when we meet again at
  CODIST2 in 2011.

34
Contacting ECA

• ICT, Science Technolgy Division
• Aida Opoku-Mensah, Director
• aopoku-mensah_at_uneca.org
• Geoinformation Systems Section
• Andre Nonguierma, OIC
• ANonguierma_at_uneca.org
• Paul Belanger, GIS Officer
• paul.belanger_at_un.org
• http//geoinfo.uneca.org/sdiafrica/
• http//www.uneca.org