African geo-scientists meet in Accra

Accra(Greater Accra), 22nd June 99 ?

President Jerry John Rawlings on Monday tasked African Geo-scientists to ensure an efficient correlation between geographical information and land use to bring about clear-cut development.

He said this is vital since development policies and programmes have a tendency to focus on specific sectors and the resolution of specific problems without necessarily taking account of the way in which they affect each other.

President Rawlings said this kind of approach normally loses sight of spatial planning and leads to piecemeal development.

He, therefore, called on geo-scientists to use geo-information systems to overcome practices, which have negative outcomes.

This is contained in a speech read on his behalf by Hajia Fati Jawula, a Member of the Council of State, at the opening of the Fourth Africa Geo-Information Systems '99 (AFRICAGIS) Conference and Exposition in Accra.

It is under the theme Emergent Africa: Geo-Information and Globalisation".

AFRICAGIS ' 99 brings together specialists from a wide range of sectors in development and application of geographical reference information in Africa.

This is the fourth Conference after those in Tunisia, South Africa and Cote d'Ivoire.

He referred to a situation where a farmer was awarded a prize for his excellent production of yams by one ministry while another chased him for encroaching upon a protected conservation area.

He cited another example of encouragement given to estate developers to increase housing stock without counting the loss in agricultural land and forests.

"Geo-information technology can give our planners and policy implementers that same clear and accurate overview, but more importantly, the tools to prevent such errors through prudent land use planning".

He said as globalisation challenges us to increase productivity and competitiveness and to provide incentives to encourage investors to utilise our resources, we must remember that the bottom line is sustainability.

"We cannot have sustainability without integrated planning, and we cannot have sound development planning without accurate geographical information", President Rawlings added.

Mr Jonathan Allotey, Chairman of the Local Organising Committee, said the conference is the most important geo-information event in Africa.

Two hundred and fifty thousand African geo-information and industry representatives from various parts of the world are attending the conference.

He said it is being organised by three consortium organisations and under the auspices of the ministries of communications, environment, science and technology and lands and forestry.

Dr Christina Amoako-Nuama, Minister of Lands and Forestry, who chaired the ceremony, said geo-information technology must be available to the continent's universities and all educational institutions to make the technology more relevant to Africa.

She said her ministry is coming out with a sustainable management of forests policy and hopes that the conference will lend many techniques to make the programme worthwhile.