Ghana to host 7th Africa remote sensing conference

Spread, September 5/2008

Story: Charles Benoni Okine

GHANA has been selected to host the 7th biannual African Conference and Exhibition on Remote Sensing of Environment (AASRE) dubbed, International Geoinformation Conference.
The conference, expected to draw one of the largest international participants from across Africa, Europe and the United States of America, will provide a forum for discussion of strategies for the development of decision support tools for planning the location of social infrastructure and monitoring social services.
A delegation from the planning committee announced this when they met with the Vice-President, Alhaji Aliu Mahama, at the Castle, Osu, yesterday to brief him on the upcoming conference scheduled for October 27 to 31, on the theme, “Application of Earth Observation and Geoinformation for Good-Governance in Africa.”
The courtesy call also offered the delegation the opportunity to formally invite the Vice-President to be the Guest Speaker for the opening ceremony at the Accra International Conference Centre.
The members of the delegation were Mr Jonathan Allotey, Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), who led the group; Dr Grace Bediako, the Government Statistician; Mr Foster Mensah, Executive Director of the Centre for Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Services (CERGIS) of the University of Ghana, Legon; Mr Kweku Oppon-Tutu, Deputy Director of the Department of Feeder Roads; Mr Benjamin Akwerteh, Principal Application Specialist, CERGIS; and Mr Djate Andrews, Finance and Administration Manager of CERGIS.
Briefing the media shortly after meeting the Vice-President, the leader of the delegation, Mr Jonathan Allotey, said the conference would also serve as a platform for the participants to brainstorm the methods to provide adequate human and institutional capacity to evolve Geoinformation-driven sustainable development for African countries.
He said there would be special sessions during the conference on cross cutting and penitent issues confronting Africa and Ghana in particular such as land management and administration, forestry resource management, infrastructure planning and management, disaster planning and management, marine and coastal zone management and capacity building in space technologies and special database development.
On the importance of geoinformation for national development, he said it had spatial context that included distribution of natural resources; descriptions of infrastructure such as buildings; utility and transport services; patterns of land use and health; wealth; employment; voting habits of people, among others.
“Geographic Information is a key component of Public Sector Information. Geographic Information has significant economic and policy value because it enables the integrated assessment of policies in different sectors such as agriculture, transport, regional development and environment,” he added
Dr Bediako, the Government Statistician, said geoinformation system would be used during the 2010 census.
She said this would ensure that everyone was captured during the enumeration exercise while areas for the exercise would also be properly mapped out.
Dr Bediako said the technology would also allow for fewer deployment of census personnel, which meant that cost would be cut while quality of the work would be enhanced.
Mr Oppon-Tutu on his part described the use of geographic information system as a key to the successful management of feeder roads in the country.
He said through the use of the technology, the department had been able to correctly map out areas where roads would be constructed.
Mr Mensah said there would be an exhibition as part of the conference programme to enable companies dealing in the new technologies to showcase their equipment.
He said companies from Israel, United Kingdom, USA and Nigeria had all committed themselves to the conference.
On preparations so far, Mr Mensah said the committees working on the organisation had made significant progress by ensuring that all that was needed had been put in place to enable Ghana to once again host a successful international conference.
He said the committee was poised to justify its selection to host the conference and urged all to assist in making it a success.