Distr.: LIMITED

ECA/NRD/CART.9/ORG.33

November 1996

Original: ENGLISH

Ninth United Nations Regional

Cartographic Conference for Africa

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

11-15 November 1996

CONSTRAINTS AND OPPORTUNITIES IN HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT IN

AFRICA IN THE FIELD OF EARTH RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT INFORMATION

NINTH UNITED NATIONS REGIONAL CARTOGRAPHIC CONFERENCE FOR AFRICA

ADDIS ABABA, 11 - 15 NOVEMBER 1996.

CONSTRAINTS AND OPPORTUNITIES IN HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT IN

AFRICA IN THE FIELD OF EARTH RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENTINFORMATION

BY

REGIONAL CENTRE FOR TRAINING IN AEROSPACE SURVEYS, RECTAS, ILEIFE,

NIGERIA

RESUME

Assessment of a country's betterment status is now by a system of its natural/earth

resources and environmental information accounting on the basis of what is there, how

much is used, and the optimum desirable for sustainable progress. This national capital

stock taking requires a powerful tool - Natural resources and environment information

system.

India is using its information technology effectively to initiate sustainable natural resources

utilisation. Currently, natural resources and environment information is being recognised as a

utility as important an infrastructure as water, roads, hospitals, etc. African national mapping

organisations are already under pressure to develop spatial data infrastructure as part of the

national utilities for socio-economic development. The main constraint is human resources

development. Education and training are the vehicles for successful human resources

development. Constraints on education and training are many. Issues range over who to

educate and train, what type of education and training, where it should be delivered, who

should pay and how the trained and specialised could be retained to have a critical mass for

successful management of the SDI. Constraints: these include such main issues as

marketing strategies, weak patronage of the Regional Centres, high cost of digital systems

and products, lack of appreciation of the importance of long term investment in the relevant

scientific and technological education, etc.

Numerous opportunities for human resources development in the field of earth resources

and environmental information exist in Africa but are not yet sufficient in number and some

are weak or inappropriate, both at national, sub-regional and regional levels. Institutions

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involved include UNOOSA African Centres for Space Science and Technology Education,

ECA sponsored Regional and Sub-regional Centres as well as private organisations working

in the information technology.

In conclusion, the paper stresses the need for encouragement to the national and regional

centres to develop indigenous-based training of personnel. In doing so standardization

should be considered very important for national institutions and sub-regional member

states to co-operate in the development of the spatial data infrastructure.

African countries development can never be sustainable as long as they depend mainly on

external funding. There is need for Africa to mobilize internal resources. Severe shortage of

skilled and experienced personnel and inappropriate or weak institutions are among the

major factors slowing down the pace of development in Africa. The way some donors1

technical assistance have been provided have not helped successfully sustainable critical

capacity building and this need to be reviewed.

Finally, some recommendations are made to address these issues.

EARTH RESOURCE AS A COUNTRY'S NATIONAL CAPITAL

Earth resources (land as space for physical development, soils for agricultural production, rock

minerals, water; atmosphere and the biota) constitute the national capital of a country. It is now

fashionable to assess the well-being or betterment status of a country not by mere economic

indicators such as the gross national product, GNP, but by the system of natural resources

accounting, which has at its core the concept of carrying capacity. Carrying capacity implies that

improvement in the quality of life is possible only when the pattern and levels of production-

consumption/conservation activities are compatible with the capacities of the land as natural

environment. The carrying capacity-based planning process thus involves an integration of social

expectations and ecological capabilities by minimising future differentials between realised and

desired supply/demand patterns, infrastructure congestion patterns, resource availability/use patterns

and assimilative capacity/residual patterns, (1). The operational framework for internalisation of the

concept of carrying capacity to ensure sustainable development involves the estimation of supportive

and assimilative capacities, and optimal allocation of resources. In other words, To ensure optimal

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allocation of resources, locale-specific environment-friendly, economically feasible and culturally

acceptable action plans are essential. These integrated developmental plans must include a broader

integrative view of soils, minerals, water and biota to resolve the land use conflicts and to ensure the

maintenance of ecological integrity of life the support systems and the productive capacities of the

environment, (2).

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY FOR EARTH RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT

Information is a commodity; it has value, is marketable, its value can be added to through processing.

It is tradeable only if known, wanted and is available in easily accessible form. Earth Resource and

Environment Information is essentially a spatial information or geo-information. One of the greatest

spin-offs of the Space Technology is the Information Technology. Throughout the world, information

and communication technologies are generating a new industrial revolution which is adding huge

capacities to human intelligence, (3). Among the utilities considered very essential for effective

development of the natural resources, Geo-infomation Utility, (4) or Spatial Data Infrastructure (5) or

Geographic Data Infrastructure, (6) is defined to be a set of institutional, technical and economic

arrangements to support availability of relevant, up-to date and integrated geo-information, timely

and at an affordable cost to support decision making processes related to a country's sustainable

development. The utility is needed to improve access, sharing, integration and use of geo-

information to support decision making at different levels (horizontally: across different thematic

databases; vertically: from local to national levels).

AGENDA 21 ON RESOURCE AND ENVIRONMENT INFORMATION

The RIO Conference emphasised the relevance of surveying, mapping, and charting in the

implementation of Agenda 21 and pointed out the need for all countries to recognise and implement

programmes aimed at

■ creating access to appropriate information;

■ developing and strengthening the legal framework for land management with a view to

improving access to land resources and land ownership for the purpose of alleviating

poverty due to land hunger;

■ increasing exchange of information on demographic dynamics and sustainability;

■ undertaking national inventory of land resources with a view to establishing US for

sustainable settlement development;

■ creating efficient and accessible land markets by improving land registry systems and

streamlining land transaction procedures for sustainable settlement development;

■ developing integrated information system for environmental monitoring, accounting and

impact analysis with a view to combating land degradation;

■ developing methodologies for establishment of databases on land uses for the purposes

of sustainable agriculture and rural development,

■ developing databases for assessing the coastal areas and for ship route charting for

navigational safety as a measure for the protection of the oceans;

■ transforming existing information into forms more useful for decision-makers.

The role of the Information Technology , IT, for achieving these goals cannot be over-emphasised.

The IT has created a new information management concept, the concept of spatial data, which in

some literature is referred to as geographic information, geo-data, or geo-information.

SPATIAL DATA INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT

Spatial Data Infrastructure, SDI (7) or Geographic Information Infrastructure, Gil, (8), or Geo-

information Utility, GU, (4) refers to the totality of the assemblage of the technology and human

resources together for sharing of data, which is becoming increasingly possible through the

development of electronic networks. By sharing data, duplication of collection and pre-processing is

avoided, partnership can be fostered, and citizens can become active participants in planning for their

communities (9). It is an umbrella of policies, standards and procedures under which organisations

and technologies interact to foster more efficient use , management and production of spatial data .

This last definition agrees with President Clinton's executive definition, which is, the people,

technology(software, hardware, data, telecommunication), and policies necessary to share

geographic data across all levels ofgovernment, the private and non-profit sectors, academia and the

community, (10)

Going by the definition above, the human resources dimension of the SDI encompasses the

policy/decision makers at the top of the pyramid, the middle class of professional and technical

supporting cadres, descending through the hierarchy of the pyramid to the base at which is the public

and the school-going goup, the latter being the labour force of tomorrow.

In almost all the African countries there is now an increasing pressure to create a National Spatial

Data Infrastructure NSDI, as a condition for effective management of the natural resource and

environmental information for the fulfilment of the goals of Agenda 21. Most of the countries are

already obtaining World Bank assistance for the implementation of the NSDI. The current

development strategies therefore include the creation of National Spatial Data Infrastructure NSDI

(NGII, NGU) as an important national utility service. Indeed NSDI is put at the same level of

importance as any ofthe physical and social utilities of a country.

THE INDIAN EXPERIENCE

There is an Indian experience which indicates that technology is essentially a human-driven

endeavour as far as policy formulations and implementations are concerned. The human resources

aspect has been amply demonstrated in a programme developed from the Indian space technology.

The Department of Space embarked upon a national mission called, Integrated Mission for

Sustainable Development (IMSD), charged with integrated land and water development (2). The task

involved the generation of information on natural resources using satellite data integrated with

relevant collateral information. The collateral information included meteorological inputs (rainfall

intensity, distribution etc.) and socio-economic/cultural and demographic information. All these

maps (spatial data) and other collateral information (attribute data) were integrated using GIS to

identify coherent micro level land units in terms of their resource potential and problems. Specific

action plans for these land units were arrived at in consultation with experts from various central/state

developmental departments, agricultural universities/research institutions and district level officials.

The Indian experience points to three major requirements:

■ Development oftele-communication as vehicle in the form of information highways/super

highways linking vertically and horizontally distributed workstations (environments) in the

area of information system applicable to natural resources and environment management.

■ Education and training Space Science and Technology and related spin-off discipline as a

deliberate effort to facilitate the creation of the spatial data infrastructure needed for

organised and orderly development.

■ Deliberate efforts to create the necessary work environment to encourage indigenous

manpower growth and its effective utilisation for the eco-based socio-economic

development.

UNOOSA *S CAMPAIGN FOR HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT

The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs is actively campaigning for the development of

Space Science and Technology Education. (11). For the African Region, the UNOOSA has

completed arrangements for two African centres education, the anglophone centre being placed at the

campus of Obafemi Awolowo University at He Ife to work in collaboration with RECTAS, and the

francophone centre being placed in Morocco's national centre (12). The basic idea behind it is to

educate educators, senior level scientists and technologist, who, rather than being able to apply

already known principles, also have the capability to develop new techniques and principles for the

promotion of technology and its applications. The hope is that the scientists educated at the centres

will become the nuclei for the education of additional local experts in space technology and

applications, thus setting off a chain of reaction for generation of adequately trained staff, in

sufficient numbers to provide a measure of self-reliance.

IMPLICATIONS OF HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT

Education and training are the vehicles for the development of the human resources. The objectives

of education are to bring the individual to an understanding of a subject, so that he or she may form

independent opinions, establish priorities, understand and discuss the methodology, the techniques

used and their applications. Education is concerned with the development of mental ability and of

mental power, and therefore with the attitude of a person.

The objectives of training are to teach individuals ta carry out specific tasks based upon an accepted

methodology and for which known techniques are avilable. Understanding of the context is not

always required; often only the ability to apply the technique is needed. Knowledge of the subject as

a whole, may not be necessary. Training brings the individual to a desired standard of efficiency

achieved by practical instructions and practice. Specific differences between training (13) are that,

training emphasises on specialised instruction, short time frame, concentrated attention, intense

delivery, practical emphasis, performance skills, and behavioural change. Education on the other hand

emphasises on general instruction, long time frame, dispersed attention, measured delivery,

theoretical emphasis, knowledge acquisition and synthesis of ideas. To create the awareness,

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flexibility and motivation necessary to adjust to rapidly changing conditions, education and

'continuing education" programmes are necessary to keep pace with the fast changing information

technologies applicable to resources and environment management.

EDUCATION AND TRAINING IN THE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

First of all the current scene shows extreme high cost in data acquisition and management in which

there is an increased demand for sophisticated applications, ( Paresi and Radwan). There is also

rapidly changing mode of information management from the traditional centralised location and

authority to a decentralised or distributed locations. The picture is that of heterogeneous hosts,

operating systems, data sources and data structures. The organisational aspect (tools, services,

management, etc. ) for supporting the development of the decentralised systems has also changed.

For a country, the education and training have to be an integrated approach. The Indian approach is an

integrated one . Australia and New Zealland are following the integrated approach with a strategy for

managing the national level through a National Council (7).

The implications of this for human resources development is that it is not a question of ad-hoc

planning for a few at a time, using external of donors benevolence. It is also not a question of

concentration on one particular national institution.

The scope of human resources development for natural resources and environment information is

determined by the horizontal (the sectors that work in any of the fields associated with natural

resources and the environment) and vertical (from national to local level institutions) data-users (15).

THE CURRENT AFRICAN SITUATION

At the national levels there are unco-ordinated efforts which are seen in the following ways: universities

trying to mount post graduate programmes in Remote Sensing and GIS with some skeletal facilities

which are either supplied under donor assistance or inter-university research co-operation programmes;

parastatals which have managed to use local budget to establish some workstations on softwares and

hardwares that are already becoming obsolete; private companies, especially mining and civil engineering

developing their own operating systems restricted to their own field of applications; national centres of

remote sensing trying to expand into the GIS domain with donor assistance programme or loans from the

Brettonwwods institutions. Some national mapping agencies NMAs, are beginning to establish digital

basemap systems for nation-wide conversion of the existing medium scale topographic maps from

analogue to digital. As a result of the changing technology, these NMAs are currently under pressure to

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convert from the traditional centralised system of static, hardcopy producers of topographic maps to more

market-driven, dynamic softcopy digital products to serve the requirements of the hosts of secondary

.tertiary data users.

Regional Centres which have the mandate to develop training facilities to facilitate manpower

development are starved of funds as a result of low contributions from the member states. Among the

many constraints the following are the common ones:

■ There are fiscal and planning barriers to implementation of new courses in institutions of higher

learning. Consequently, the justification for the extra expenditure that comes with new courses is

strongly contested by those in authority who are not fully convinced of the benefits of these

technologies.

■ There is an acute shortage of teaching staff. Staff who received training are finding better

placements elsewhere resulting in very high turn-over.

■ There is a lack of established formal theory, literature and teaching and training materials.

Materials that are available are invariably developed in Europe and North America. Usually these

are of basic relevance but not made easily applicable to the local situations. Even that they are

very limited.

At the regional level the existing Regional Centres have been set up to address the problem of middle

level manpower development. These centres are currently under-funded by their member states, who are

under donor influence to send their personnel outside to the donor institutions for training in environment

generally more sophisticated than the conditions the trainees will return to after the training. The irony of

the situation is that, some of the regional centres are being drawn into partnership programmes for

technology development and transfer, and under these partnership programmes the main condition is that

the member states of the centres should show concrete evidence of commitment.

IMPLICATIONS OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

Education and training have many implications concerning the issues of who are to be

educated/trained, what the training should be and where it should take place, how long the training

should be, who should bear the cost, who should do the training, how the trained could be retained

after training, and what the critical mass should be (14). These issues are discussed as a dimension

ofthe scope of constraints and possibilities. There must be a purpose for education and training. The

development of a National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) should be the basic purpose for

education and training. To reach this goal it is inevitable to encounter the issues which have been

raised in this very paragraph.

Who are to be educated/trained?

Human resources development for NSDI should take into consideration the people for whom, and by

whom it is to be developed : the public, the technical and professional cadres, and the policy makers

are the three broad categories who need education and training in one form or the other. To break that

down into sub-groups, the list includes the following:

• Decision-makers and planners, including politicians and senior officials, who need to

have a general awareness of the relevance of GIS applicable to natural resources and

environment information management.

• Opinion leaders (leading scientists, directors of government environment programmes), who

are influential in approving or disapproving the use of the technology

• Managerial executives in institutions, agencies and private enterprises, who require

sufficient technical background to co-ordinate activities regarding specific applications

the technology.

• Professional and technical cadres carrying out resource surveying tasks at various levels,

who should receive instructions for interpretation of imagery and digital data for

mapping and monitoring in various disciplines and environments and the manipulation of

the data in a GIS.

• Technical support staff, from engineers to technicians, who should be responsible for

construction, operation and maintenance of facilities and equipment and which need

manuals with instructions for performing technical tasks;

• Research workers, who should develop interdisciplinary approaches in their work and

possess in-depth knowledge on several aspects of GIS applications.

• Teachers, Trainers responsible for the education and training of the various groups of

personnel, who should have an insight in technical matters and in environmental

sciences, and experience in educational technology and curriculum development;

• Students at schools, colleges, universities, etc.;

• The general public

A technology can be appreciated better by a purposefully informed population, and the

infrastructure for the success of the technology can be meaningfully utilised by the community if the

members are adequately educated and trained.

Where the training should be and be the type the training should take

There are two options to the issue: training within the African conditions, and training overseas in

the native environment of the technology. While both internal and external trainings are good, and

each has its own merits and demerits, the importance of training in the African environment can never

be over-emphasised if the conditions are the right type.

Naturally, it is a small number which need high-level education aiming at both specialisation and

integration, with emphasis on the consequences of technological innovations. The required

educational facilities should, for reasons of efficiency, be regional or international, in the sense that a

regional institution has relatively much expanded facilities for shared uses. In this case the small and

the poor countries are obviously spared the financial burden of having to look for large capital outlay

for the expensive, yet fast changing hard/soft-wares of the technology.

As Africa is not at the moment a hard/soft-ware producer, it is still valid to give some consideration

(for now) to overseas training for the core educators, trainersiand innovators of the technology.

As to the type of training, there are several types depending upon the objectives. Below is a brief

discussion ofthe most common ones:

On-the-job and in-service Training

On-the-job training usually goes with transfer of technology projects, pilot projects or other low-cost

interventions. There are also in-service training courses with advantages of teaching materials

specifically related to the local conditions and needs, and also the advantage of a larger group being

trained at relatively low cost, in order to reach a critical mass.

On-the-job training is an essential component of every technological training programme. It

provides the "finishing" stage of the classroom and laboratory training which is necessarily isolated

from the real conditions ofthe workplace, since many real problems cannot be easily simulated in the

training laboratory. It is the time when the trainee leams to apply the formally-acquired skills in the

wide variety of tasks and problems which confront the specialist. All skills are learnt best by

exercising them.

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On-the-job training uses available personnel and equipment resources; it does not require special

training staff or accommodation; it is specific to the local needs and the trainee is productive on the

job. In the RS and GIS applications, on-the-job training is particularly relevant where practical

training far outweighs theoretical study, as for example, in the techniques of digital data processing,

"data entry", and digitising maps for input in the GIS. Within a country, there are many co-operation

projects which create the facilities for on-the-job experience. The problem is in the retention of the

personnel after gaining the necessary skill. Often improved conditions succeed in retaining the

personnel.

The dangers however are that, ( a ), on-the-job training may be used by default as the "natural"

training method where more structured training with a sound theoretical component is really required

to produce fully rounded specialists, ( b ) that, the supervisors with indifferent abilities may be used,

(c) that training may be too narrow having significant gaps in skill or knowledge, ( d ) and that, the

effectiveness of training may not be objectively measured.

Short and long term training in the African regional centres

The regional centres, by the very nature of their mandate are to offer training relevant to the socio-

economic and cultural context of Africa.

■ At RECTAS, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, for example, there are the RECTAS-ITC-GDTA partnership

projects on curricula development for manpower training in GEOINFOMATICS.

■ At RCSSMRS in Nairobi, Kenya, there is currently an Italian funded AFRICOVER project for

land cover information, experience from which is likely to be passed on through training

seminars and workshops to its catchment countries.

■ At CRTO in Ouagadougou, there is a revival of its remote sensing programmes with GIS

■ At AGRYMET in Niamey , the environmental application of AVHRR data for vegetation

monitoring

■ Some national centres ( e.g. Morocco, Tunisia, Cote d'lvoire, Kenya, etc. are developing

programmes of training for their neighbours.

If the centres are well equipped and well staffed they should be the appropriate vehicles for raising

the critical mass needed by the individual countries . The regional centres are the most appropriate

for the North-South-South partnership in technology transfer.

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Long Term Training programmes at RECTAS

Short courses cannot raise sufficient technical and professional manpower needed for the digital

mapping technology. It is the long courses that offer the required theory and practice sufficiently.

RECTAS by its mandate offers these long term courses at three levels: Technician (18 months),

Technologist (18 months), and Post Graduate (12 months) in Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing/GIS,

and in the near future in Cartography.

In collaboration with ITC (Netherlands) and GDTA (France), RECTAS is introducing programmes

for GEOINFOMATICS. This development is being promoted with funding by the European Union

on one hand, and on the other hand separately by the Governments ofFrance and Netherlands.

Overseas stafftraining

Most of the present generation of practitioners have been trained overseas in places where the

technology has developed. Given the superiority of the environment of the ex situ training facilities in

the advanced economies the debate still goes on about how long Africa should rely on outside help

with its own "weather permitting" mechanisms.

Sending African staff overseas for training has both its merits and demerits. Among the merits are

the availability to the trainee of well-equipped laboratories, highly qualified/experienced teachers,

multi-disciplinary, interrelated programmes, benefits of international contacts and exchange of ideas

with fellow students from other countries, and maintenance allowance which enhances his or her

living standard as compared to conditions in the home country. The demerits are that, only a few per

country can be trained abroad each year; on their return (if they do return at all), they are often

promoted to positions where they no longer apply the skill gained from the training. In many cases

the training materials and conditions are sometimes less relevant to the home conditions; the training,

(made possible by donors* fellowships) are focused too much on the technology of the donor.

How long the training should be and who should do the training?

In the present conditions, African countries on the whole need both short-term, medium-term and

long-term programmes to fulfil their various requirements. Though figures are not easy to come by

for analysis of the situation, it is evident that, most international, regional and bilateral technical co-

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operation programmes, despite providing large sums of money, are geared to short-term objectives.

Associated with these co-operation projects are aid-sponsored training programs which are

particularly on-and-off type short courses. These suffer from the inability of both the contributing

and participating agencies to follow-up, reinforce and extend the training of those involved in the

initial courses. So much of the learning is dissipated so that the momentum for using the technology

is lost because the participants from these courses on return to their own organisations invariably

loose the opportunity for implementing the skills acquired ; some persevere for a while and finally

leave for a greener pasture.

Depending on the kind of project in view, and depending also on the manpower situation and

educational content of the country, the duration of training, based on what has been done in the past,

and is being done at present, falls into five categories:

• short (five days) courses/seminars/workshops for senior decision makers, as a means of

sensitisation

• two-four weeks introductory GIS courses to professionals both as a sensitising

mechanism and also initial empowerment.

• two to six months courses to professionals for basic operationalisation of the technology

• nine to eighteen months courses to professionals and technicians for building the

capability to perform adequately

• one to two years for an M.Sc and two to four years for a PhD for educators, trainers,

researchers and innovators.

The present training activities for RS/GIS consist of five categories of institutions offering either RS

with GIS as a component or vice versa.. They are the following institutions:

• Universities and other educational institutions accredited for education as part of the

standard curricula or as separate programmes;

• Remote sensing centres, established for applied research in remote sensing and for its

introduction to user agencies, and who offer GIS as part of the courses;

• GIS centres and User agencies capable of conducting short courses in the application of

GIS;

• National institutions organising irregular ad hoc training courses in GIS for their own or

in co-operation with other countries for their respective manpower development;

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• Private enterprises, independent research laboratories and institutes are occasionally

organising ad hoc workshops, seminars and on-the-job training as part of a development

project;

Though from the above organisms, a number of GIS personnel have emerged on the scene, it cannot

be said that the various programmes have been successful. An obvious problem has been lack of co

ordination among the different programmes. If it continues, like that then it is likely to create

temporary over-supply of educational opportunities offered in an incoherent manner, with the danger

of imbalance in the personnel pyramid. This is especially so when universities mount their own

programmes with inadequate equipmentation. The result is that they are able to turn out only ill-

equipped, theoretically loaded graduates who fill the middle levels with professional level salaries yet

not being able to perform adequately unless they are retrained.

The current technical training programmes respond often solely to immediate needs, or are too

strongly based on past experiences, instead of forming part of a long-term educational strategy or

personnel development plan. The computer technology is changing by the month, rendering software

training in any one of them outdated soon after the training is completed.

There is the need for better co-ordination by the major institutes/agencies providing the training .

This co-ordination is better planned within the context of the North-South-South co-operation, with

the development partnerships developed between the existing external institutions (UNEP, ,

UNITAR, FAO, ITC, GDTA, etc.) and the regional centres ( RECTAS, RCSSMRS, CRTO, etc.) on

one hand, and on the other, the national centres.

Who should bear the cost of the training?

Perhaps, outside South Africa, very few University institutions in Africa have been able to finance

adequate facilities with much internal funding. . The few which have attempted to do so are

precariously balancing on external assistance from inter-university research co-operation

programmes. Financial commitment to RS/GIS education and training from the government for

national or regional programmes have been sporadic with the result that, left to internal funding very

littlecouldbe done to allow RS/GIS technologies to become operational.

Private industries, for example, those in the geological and mining sectors have committed

substantial amounts to implementing RS/GIS technology for their own use with the situation that

much ofthe personnel development has been an in-house affair.

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Severe financial constraints on university and research institutions over the last ten years have meant

that few institutions have committed sufficient funds to establish adequate facilities to meet the

growing demands . Sporadic grants for the purchase of a single workstation by individual faculty

departments, and appointment of academic staff with inadequate skills in RS/GIS are indicators of

inadequacy for education and training by the African universities.

Not much internal financial resources have been committed, for the general reason that the national

survival planning strategy places high priority on the most essential consummates, postponing

allocation to desirable capital items.

Until such time as sufficient potential users become the actual adopters of the technology and thereby

create a demand for trained and capable personnel, the developers of that technology and agencies

searching for markets will continue in the so-called technology transfer business by directly

supporting and funding the establishment and maintenance of training programmes in RS/GIS. This

trend will continue until the real benefits of RS/GIS are seen and felt to justify the large capital

outlay.

Currently, at the national level it is the World Bank funded projects which are seriously funding

RS/GIS applications with training component. Of course this is an indirect national funding based on

loans.

What should be the critical mass for operationalisation?

Determination of the optimum size of the professional/technical manpower has something to do with

the idea of critical mass. "Critical mass" as an idea originated in nuclear physics where a chain-

reaction will only occur if the mass of the fissile atoms is above a certain value: the critic mass. The

idea applies here in particular to the creation of a small team of expert engineers and technicians for

the institutions expected to manage the information system. Two or three persons are usually

insufficient to really have an impact on a new field or on a new technology in an established

department or institute.

One may like to use the Indian experience, which indicates that, teams of about 20 to 30 persons at

different levels and in diverse disciplines are required for the local centres to support the Surveying

Institution in each of the states in the Federation. In the African environment a similar number will

not be high for setting up in a distributed environment at the Local Government level, a database for

Land Related Information System LRIS , for the purpose of its fiscal and physical planning .

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There are also the research institutions for Water, Soils, Aquatic, Forestry, Crop, Marine, Game and

wild-life resources, the Meteorological services, the Environmental Protection Agencies, which

operate as national level GOs. These institutions are another set of data users whose individual

systems could be organised as federated data sharing community, each with its own specialised

database.

Manpower and map situation assessments are needed to determine national data gaps and needs

for federated system of Resource and Environment Information database.

How can the trained be retained ?

Personnel must not only be trained to do the job, but must be motivated to perform efficiently. If

training is very important, then motivation for performance is even much more important for the

success of the technology transfer. Among the factors of motivation the following are considered to

be critical for staff stability and initiative for innovation:

• Perceived status of the job, which depend on the salary level compared to other

opportunities, the level of technology used, the physical conditions of the work ;

publicity given to the job location, and the work environment;

• Perceived career opportunity, influenced largely by such things as the necessary

feedback on performance, (the staff member receiving clear indications on the difference

between a good and a poor performance).

• Opportunity for self-achievement and career improvement, which implies among other

things that the staff has to be encouraged to move up the personnel/social ladder with

improved qualification from sponsored courses and/or demonstration of exceptional

performance.

The competitiveness ofthe labour market in GIS at the moment has to be taken into consideration in

relation to the productivity factors mentioned above. The skilled staff dissatisfied with their

employment conditions are very likely to find better opportunities elsewhere within or outside the

country. Indeed the present plague is that of the civil service organisations loosing their highly

trained staff to industry soon after the training. Most African countries struggling with Structural

Adjustment Programmes are currently hardly capable of retaining highly skilled GIS practitioners in

the public sector.

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Motivation need to be complemented with proper management to ensure that the necessary means

for carrying out each job are continuously available, especially hardware spare parts. This is often a

difficult problem facing African countries.

CONCLUSIONS

Natural resources and environment information management requires the use of the modern

information technology. The current thinking places emphasis on Spatial Data Infrastructure or

Geographic Information Infrastructure. Its development involves the people, the technology and

policies. Technology implies the software, the hardware, the data and telecommunication. In other

words the development of natural resources and environment information is predicated on an

umbrella of policies, standards and procedures under which organisations and technologies interact to

foster more efficient use , management and production of spatial data. The fundamental requirement

is the development of the human factor as the facilitator for policy-making, policy implementation,

and project execution.

The human resources development can only be achieved through education and training carefully

planned . In countries which are successfully using geo-information utilities, they have put in place a

national umbrella body for planning and implementation of strategies aimed at achieving general

education for public awareness of the importance and implications of national spatial data

infrastructure, as of the same degree of importance as the roads, hospitals, and other public utilities

or services. In those countries recognition has been given to decentralisation approach as the more

efficient way of using the information technology. In this decentralised approach the situation is that

of heterogeneous hosts, operating systems, data sources and data structures , which require inter

operability among them. All these require that basic space science and technology education be

seriously embarked upon by African countries in order to raise the relevant manpower for the

information technology. In this regard two centres have already been placed , one in Morocco and the

other in Nigeria, at He Ife . The latter is envisaged to work close in collaboration with RECTAS

particularly in the area of training in the use of RS and GIS techniques.

It has to be recognised that there are many constraints to achieving the development of geo-

information infrastructure. We have already mentioned most of them while discussing the issues

concerning education and training, we highlight them below.

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CONSTRAINTS TO HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT

The key ones worth mentioning here are the following : financial, donor parternalism, vendor's

marketing strategies, weak patronage of the regional centres, high cost of digital systems and

products, lack of appreciation of the importance of long term investment in the relevant scientific and

technological education.

♦ Financial constraints prevent the acquisition of educational, training and research facilities

needed for human resources development on long term basis which require programmes

with detailed cost breakdown, implementation schedules, infrastructural requirements and

end-to end planning with realistic appreciation of all linkages to ensure that the benefits of

the programme reach the people. In the present weak financial situation most African

countries can hardly practice this long term, systematic approach in a political environment

of instability.

♦ Donor parternalism is implied in the situation where the recipient has very little or no

initative to be self-supporting with the result that domestic budgets of the recipient are

strictly controlled for a set of objectives not always in line with the desire for self-reliance

strategy. This is evident more in the countries whose budgets are supported externally.

♦ Vendor influence of sophisticated hard- and soft-wares being sol with aggressive marketing

strategy, result being that the sophistry is not really needed, and is indeed beyond the reach

of the customer.

♦ Bilateral aid syndrome has led to the regional centres being starved of support while the

member states are being wooed over with aggressive marketing strategies and aid

conditionalities that turn them away from their commitment to the centres.

♦ High cost of space imageries, high cost of hard- and soft-wares and application of

discriminatory practices by the vendors discourage private and personal initiative among the

trained personnel, who are willing to carry on research and development. Remote Sensing

training is still a costly exercise when viewed from the need to use satellite imagery for

application projects

♦ Lack of indigenous growth of industries capable of manufacturing hard- and soft-wares

needed to exploit the benefit of space technology on a nation-wide and regional scale, thereby

reducing the technological capability of the nations, and resulting in a large outflow of its

scarce financial resources

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♦ Despite these constraints the scene shows that African countries are being swept along by the

wave of the Information Technology. Its application to Spatial Data Management is

recognised in all the countries. National Mapping Organisations are increasingly being

pressured to covert to digital technology to respond to demand for digital data by a host of

users. That in itself indicate that the new technology has taken roots. One has to look for

possibilities for overcoming the constraints.

♦ Severe shortage of skilled and experienced personnel and inappropriate or weak institutions

are among the major factors slowing down the pace of development in Africa because the

right priorities have not been given to their development.

♦ Developing countries can never make sustainable development as long as they depend mainly

on external sources for funds for manpower development among their other development

efforts as no critical mass will ever emerge.

♦ Despite the fact that there had been numerous capacity building initiatives for human

resources development in Africa by some donors to tackle the problem, the way some

technical assistance have been provided has not helped successful capacity building. This is

due to the absence of effective local participation and involvement in strategic planning,

formulation, programme identification, design and implementation as well as the fact that

self-confidence was generally not built for local control and the exercise of authority over

development.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT

African Centre for Space Science and Technology Education

This is an opportunity which has come from the initiative taken by the UNOOSA. The basic idea

behind it is to educate educators, senior level scientists and technologist, who, rather than being able

to apply already known principles, also have the capability to develop new techniques and principles

for the promotion of technology and its applications. The hope is that the scientists educated at the

centres will become the nuclei for the education of additional local experts in space technology and

applications, thus setting off a chain of reaction for generation of adequately trained staff, in

sufficient numbers to provide a measure of self-reliance.

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Strengthening the Existing Regional Centres for North-South-South Co-operation

The existing Centres have specific mandate. Some are to provide user services, some are to provide

long term training for raising the much needed middle-level technical and professional manpower in

the mapping sciences and technologies. The common problem is under-funding, and.absence of

rationalisation among them for more effective roles in manpower development. There exist enormous

potential at these Centres to be harnessed for continental approach to training and education capable

of reaching the critical mass for a successful use of Spatial Data Infrastructure: Some of these

centres are currently being improved in terms of critical capacity thrpugh technology development

partnership with well-known training institutions in Europe, US, and Canada. The condition for this

partnership is that the member countries should show more commitment to facilitate the North-South-

South co-operation for technology transfer. These Centres are the right vehicles for research and

development in the area of

■ Integrated uses of analogue, analytical and digital techniques in Photogrammetry,

Remote Sensing, GIS and Cartography . Instruments of the four systems will for a long

time remain in parallel use for mapping and map revision.

■ Training in African conditions so that what is acquired is of direct relevance to the home

conditions.

■ Applications which have direct bearing to the issues of the day.

■ System maintenance service training, which is an important user service for ensuring that

systems are sustainable

Relatively the cost of training at these Centres are a very reasonable fraction of what is the case for

the same programme in the industrial economies. Co-operation between the industrial economies and

the developing economies of Africa, should make the Centres capable of training more in a short

period to attain the critical mass.

National Centres' Response to Agenda 21.

Almost every African country, as a result of the campaign of the World Bank's Programme on

Environment Information Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa, has some form of skeletal infrastructure

for EIS. Some are developing Remote Sensing centres. These are positive development of the RIO

Conference's emphasis on the relevance of surveying, mapping, and charting in the

implementation of Agenda 21.

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Countries should follow the examples of Australia, New Zealland, Canada, etc. which have

recognised the importance of national level and regional level integration for standardisation and co

operative efforts.

Private Participation

The whole world is being swept into the privatisation wave, and the Information Technology is in the

fore front of business enterprises which by their very nature of cost, and extremely rapid changing

components cannot be handled effectively by a slow, wasteful GOs. The trend is the encouragement

of indegenous brains to take up businesses in spatial information. Development of this under the

umbrella ofNational Council for Land Information will speed the development and application of the

technology.

Linkage Programmes between the Regional Centres and the National Centres

The Regional Centres have the potential to develop their user services as an "emergency call-

response" measure for system maintenance of the hard- and soft-ware systems of the national centres

and other institutional laboratories. This relationship exists between RECTAS and CENATEL of

Benin Republic, RECTAS and some parastatal institutions in Nigeria, and it is planned to be extended

to other member states. Similar relationship exists between the Centre in Nairobi (RCSSMRS) and its

member states.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Support to the new centres and development of fruitful working relationship with the old

centres

African countries should support the newly created Centres for Space Science and Technology

Education to achieve its objectives of human resources development for the information technology.

Complementary relationship should be worked between the old centres and the new ones that are

being placed as guests, so that there is avoidance of wasteful duplications . In that case a good balance

between education and training can be worked out.

Rationalisation of the old centres for more productive work

The rationalisation of the regional centres for more vigorous research and development need to be

pursued seriously with some changes in the conditions of service aimed at encouraging vigorous use

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of the indigenous brains. For example, contract appointment is very essential motivator for

improvement of research and academic output. ; ; „■; . ,

The rationalisation should be extended to cover the relationship between the regional and the national

centres such that procedures for managing inter-operability among the heterogeneous hosts, data

sources and data structures are developed together using the indigenous experts. It is one of the many

ways of starting on the road to self reliance.

Consideration for establishment ofNational Council for Land Information

There is the need to follow the way Australia and New Zealland have gone. They set up national

council for LIS. The council co-ordinates all the national programmes in order to prevent wasteful

duplications. This is recommended to African countries to adopt for purposes of efficient planning of

integrated human resources development with a strategy for achieving a successful NSDI.

Consideration for establishment of National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI)

Countries should give active support to the establishment of NSDI as of equal importance to other

public amenities. This will motivate a host of service rendering enterprises in the information

production industry. It is one way of creating a market for supplier and consumer growth.

Integrated approach to education and training.

1. National policies on education and training in RS/GIS in Africa for earth resource and

environment information should be part of an over-all educational policy. Education should be

regarded as a productive investment in human resources and the essential vehicle for improved

social satisfaction, higher efficiency and better services.

2. Education and training are the indispensable complements of any investment in new technology

and in expanded public services, and such investments are prime catalysts in socio-economic

development.

3. There is the need for a programme of a seminars for trainers and educators, scientist and policy

makers in Africa to ensure exchange of information on RS/GIS education, training, research,

and applications.

4. Such seminars should be aimed at harmonisation, and standardisation by ensuring more coherent

framework at identifying gaps in training requirements and in the application techniques

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5. There are many activities that can be undertaken immediately by national and international

institutions to start the development of education and training programmes that are required.

They include the following:

a. Existing training centres and facilities should be supported in their operations and

their development, more especially in the efforts to develop long and medium duration

courses in computer assisted mapping and spatial data analysis.

b. National educational infrastructure should be developed in each country in a way

that best meets that country's social and educational applications and technological

needs;

c. Co-ordination between training programmes should be maintained and improved to

ensure the widest availability of new knowledge in the rapidly developing field of

RS/GIS;

d. Long-term planning of RS/GIS education should be supported within an over-all

development strategy;

e. Training is available abroad, but it is almost entirely dependent on the availability of

fellowship awards . These are increasingly becoming scarce. Local funding sources need

to be exploited.

6. Strategies need to be developed and implemented at the national, regional, institution and user

group levels that will increase the number of training opportunities available and establish the

necessary infrastructure to ensure the continued development of RS/GIS education and training in

Africa.

7. A comprehensive survey of training institutions and facilities in Africa, and those outside Africa

interested in training arrangements with African universities and training centres is desirable for

planning purposes.

8. African countries need to map out a strategic plan for development of a critical mass of skilled and

experienced personnel and appropriate strong institutions by harnessing the scarce available

human and critical capacity resources, and ensuring effective use of these capacities to accelerate

the pace of development in Africa.

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9. There is need for African countries to look inwards and take special initiatives to plan a strategy for

African mobilisation of internal resources for human resources development in view of dwindling

external resources due to donors' fatigue.

10. Initiatives for critical capacity building for human resources development in Africa in the field of

earth resources and environmental information by donors through technical assistance should

ensure effective local participation and involvement in the strategic planning, formulation,

programme, identification and design, so that self-confidence is generally built for local control

and exercise of authority over development.

REFERENCES

1. FAO, 1989, Sustainable Development and Natural Resources Management, FAO Conference Paper

C89/2, Sup. 2, Rome.

2. Chandrasekhar, M.G. (1992), Space Technology for Sustainable Development ofNatural

Resources to meet rural and urban needs. 43rd Congress, IAF, Aug. 28-Sept. 5, Washington D.C.

3. Bangemann, M., 1994; Europe and the Global Information Society: Recommendations to the

European Council.

4. Paresi, CM. and Radwan, M.M. (1996); Guidelines for the Development and Maintenance of a

Geoinformation Utility in a Distributed Environment; Commission IV Working Group 6, ISPRS

XVIIIth Congress, Vienna, Austria, July 1996.

5. IIR (1995) Information Industry Round Table Scoping Paper, An Austrlian Spatial Data

Infrastructure, unpublished.

6. Price Waterhouse (1995), Australian Land and Geographic Data Infrastructure Benefits Study,

published for the Australia New Zealand Land Information Council by the Australian Government

Publishing Service, Canberra.

7. Kelly, P.C. (1993), Inventing the Electronic Landscape of the 21st Century. A Position Paper o n

Spatial Information in New South Wales, unpublished.

8. RAVI (1996). The National Geographic Information Infrastructure (NGII). Ravi Netherlands

Council for Geographic Information, Amersfoost, The Netherlands.

9. Smith, Thomas

10. President Clinton's Executive Order 12906, April 1994, White House, Washington.

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11. Abiodun, A.A. (1991), 'Indepth long-term education: a vehicle for tehcnology development5, UN-

Outer Space Affairs Division Paper.

12. UNCOPUOS, 1995, Report ofh UNOOSA's Basic Space Science for Developing Countries,

Vienna, 1996.

13. Burns and Henderson, I (1989) 'Education and Training in GIS: ESRT, Technical Papers ACSM-

ASPRS, annual Convention, Volume 1, Cartography and Education.

14. Van Ganderen, L. (1992), Guidelines for Education and Training in Environmental Information

Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa: some key issues', Guideline Series No. 1. Environmental Division

Technical Department, Africa Region, World Bank.

15. Konecny, G. (1993), 'Mapping and Remote Sensing - the backbone ofenviornmental information

systems in Africa' presented to the Eighth UN Regional artographic Conference for Africa, Addis

Ababa, Feb. 22-27, 1993.

For further information, please contact:

J.A. OGUNLAMI/E. AMAMOO-OTCHERE,

Director,

RECTAS

P.M.B. 5545

O.A.U. Campus,

Ile-Ife, Osun State, NIGERIA.

Phone 234-36-230050

Fax 234-36-230481

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