Kigali, 19 November 2019: A team of experts from the GMES and Africa programme of the African Union Commission are among hundreds of delegates attending the Africa-GIS 2019 Conference in the Rwandan capital, Kigali.  The biennial conference is a flagship and marketplace of Geospatial information in Africa organized to contribute to the development of skills and institutional capacity across the continent. 

 

This year’s conference is hosted by the University of Rwanda. At the opening of the four-day conference, the Minister of ICT and Innovation of Rwanda, Paula Ingabire, described the platform as an opportunity to make Africa a global power house, given the importance of GIS in effective planning and decision making, and in the everyday lives of the people.

 

The Commission is among the leading supporters of the conference, which is in conjunction with the mandate of the Global Monitoring for the Environment and Security and Africa (GMES and Africa). The Coordinator of GMES and Africa and Space Science Expert at the African Union Commission, Dr. Tidiane Ouattara, addressed the conference theme “Innovation in Geospatial Technologies for Achieving Sustainable Development Goals in Africa”.

 

Dr. Ouattara said the theme resonates with the aspirations of the African Agenda 2063, and dwelt on how Africa is facing the dynamics, challenges and imperatives of technological innovation to uplift the living conditions of people on the continent.

 

The biennial conference is the largest geospatial science and technology gathering on the continent. This year’s edition features technical discussions exploring the role of innovation in geospatial information and its implications in addressing the seventeen targets of the Sustainable Development Goals.