Analysis and Modelling of Cartographic Services Among the East African Community Member States

Abstract

Economic and political integration of East Africa has been expanding since its second founding in 2000, more so with the accession of Rwanda and Burundi (2007) and South Sudan (2016). Driven by the provisions of the common market protocol, greater regional integration is foreseen and it is expected to stimulate the demand for cartographic information to support development planning and other applications. Such information can be best served through a harmonized cartographic service which is not only lacking, but even the status of the current national services is largely unknown. This motivated the study to determine the status of the cartographic services in the East African Community (EAC) member states and to subsequently derive a roadmap for harmonized, state of the art cartographic services in East Africa. The study was accomplished by survey via semi-structured questionnaires distributed to 255 respondents in national and private mapping organizations and academic institutions. Supplementary data was got via interviews, review of country reports and map catalogues. Results revealed a lot of historical commonalities among the original member states but largely, the present cartographic services were characterized by inadequate and out of date basic datasets, low levels of computerization, lack of metadata, non-uniform spatial reference systems, limited use of mapping standards, inadequate funding, out dated laws, inadequate cartographic personnel in some countries plus the associated training facilities. Due to the fact that these cartographic service shortcomings are at different levels in the different EAC countries, it was proposed that the first step towards their regional improvement be their harmonization, so that they are largely at par. A design of this harmonization has been done, and it is estimated to take 36 months and to cost USD 45 million. The resulting harmonised EAC model was then compared to the European EuroGeographics service, considered as state of the art for purposes of this study. The comparison yielded gaps, and an upgrade design to fill the said gaps has also been carried out. It is estimated to take 60 months and to cost USD 23 million. It is concluded that even though these costs are large, the benefits of such a regional improvement exercise would by far surpass the costs, as 80% of decision making involves geo-spatial data. It is recommended that the first step towards implementing the improvement could be a legal instrument, passed by the EAC legislative assembly, similar to the directive that enabled the setting up of the European INSPIRE. This study has contributed a hard-to-find body of knowledge on the EAC cartographic services and provided a roadmap for their harmonization, then improvement to the state of the art. Areas for further research include data and map use trends prior to committing the funds for the harmonisation.