Africa-Press – Namibia. ALL OUR DAILY activities are location bound. Geospatial data and the accompanying technology have emerged as major contributors to economic transformation and evidence-based decision-making for many countries.
Location-based information provides a contextual basis for connecting people and events to different places. The integration of geospatial data in our daily activities is evident in products and services such as GPS and base map applications, navigating the closest service provider, tracking goods, and planning the best delivery routes for both businesses and citizens.
On the other hand, there has been an increase in innovative geospatial technologies, both open-source and commercial. These developments are disruptive to conventional ways of analysing problems in different sectors.
Despite these important developments, there is little integration of geospatial data and technologies in business processes and service delivery across all sectors in Namibia. This can be attributed to factors such as a lack of capacity, awareness, and unavailability of data. Geospatial data is produced and created by many organisations. Each organisation maintains a data repository for their own use, but does not make their data accessible to the wider public. As a result, geospatial data is disintegrated, creating a data vacuum for public use. It is proven that readily available data can result in more innovative projects, research, and knowledge exchange among experts, especially in the development of open-source software and programmes.
In recent years, geospatial innovation has been accelerated by global trends such as the rapid increase of urban populations, the need to respond to natural disasters and ensure environmentally sustainable management and now the need to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic. All these phenomena require the instant availability of location data to predict and evaluate best practical decisions. Specifically, there is a need to make cadastral data digitally accessible and available to all sectors as it is the backbone of our national developmental programmes, hence the need to be included in all business processes and service delivery systems.
Geospatial information sharing and management is a topical issue on the agendas of national and global developmental agencies. At home, the Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA) is coordinating activities through the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI). NSDI is a framework for coordinating the production, management, and distribution of geospatial data across all sectors.
However, there is still a general feeling of a lack of commitment from some agencies. To address the unavailability, poor quality and disintegrated geospatial data globally, the United Nations Committee of Experts of Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM), in partnership with the World Bank, has adopted the Integrated Geospatial Information Framework (IGIF). The framework aims to help governments develop, access, manage and use geospatial information, while enabling them to make effective policies to promote resilience and inclusive development across priority sectors. Hence, as a nation we need to adopt and leverage the IGIF resources and align our data management activities especially at organisational level to both the NSDI and IGIF for better coordination. THE WAY FORWARD
As a nation, we need to balance the rate at which we acquire hardware and software with the pace of creating and sharing quality datasets. We need to focus on a data-driven approach to achieving digital transformation – where technological innovation and development are driven by the availability of data. For many years, ministries and agencies have put money into building technological systems and neglected the quality and availability of data in their care as custodians and producers. As a result, we have accumulated hardware and software, much of which are not functional because of a lack of quality data. Research indicates that data is a key element in the pursuit of digital transformation. It is the catalyst and integral element for a well-functioning digital system. No data, no system. Good practice case studies from Korea and Singapore show that they have achieved digital transformation, especially in their smart cities transformation, by focusing on the availability and integration of quality data across all sectors.
Hence, the call for organisations to make data available and accessible within and between all sectors through geospatial data sharing initiatives among data producers, custodians, and data users. Spatial data sharing can be achieved through many different approaches that can be mutual or mandatory. Data sharing ensures increased consumption of data, fuels digital transformation through innovative undertakings and promotes the re-use of data that will result in high returns on investment of production for both the data and the technological artefacts. Also, readily available data has the potential to trigger innovation and collaboration among expert communities.
As a nation, we need to prioritise activities that focus on data creation and distribution. Data is valuable as a resource, but more valuable when shared and used in the design and application of digital systems aimed at service delivery for the socio-economic upliftment of communities. Organisations must prioritise the production, management, and distribution of quality geospatial data if we are to realise digital transformation.
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