Determination of Fundamental Datasets for Africa

Recognizing that Africa’s social and economic development is predicated on the careful assessment, identification, and operationalization of national development priorities, the role of high-quality data and information to support such informed decision-making readily comes to the fore. As geospatial data and geoinformation are widely accepted as essential components of the body of knowledge that informs national development strategy, then a pan-continental and common definition of what constitutes a minimally necessary core of geospatial data and information products is required. As such, the purpose of the present paper is to identify and enumerate these core, or fundamental, geospatial data sets to support Africa’s development agenda.

A user needs analysis has been conducted involving acknowledged sub-regional, regional and global partners. The outcome of the desk study and interviews is that a set of fundamental data has been proposed.