Nine African Countries On How To Marine Store Data

Accra Nine African countries, including host Ghana, are meeting in Accra to deliberate on ways to restore and rescue data on oceanography and surface marine observations onto magnetic media for use in effective climate research and management. The four-day Regional Workshop on Global Oceanographic Data Archaeology and Rescue Project (GODAR) is the sixth of its kind in the world since 1993. The other Regional Workshops were held in Russia, India, Malta, and Colombia for the respective regions. 'GODAR-VI' which opened today for more than 40 experts representing Africa, aims at identifying oceanographic data holdings in the Western African countries. "These are data which remain in manuscripts or are at risk of being lost as a result of media degradation or possible environmental catastrophes," workshop officials said. The workshop is being organised by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (UNESCO-IOC), Ministries of Education (MOE) and Environment, Science and Technology (MEST) and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), among other sponsors. Participating experts are from Nigeria, the Gambia, Sierra Leone, Cameroon, Angola, South Africa, Benin and Cote d'Ivoire as well as the sponsors.