A policy to better guide, coordinate sharing of geospatial data being finalised |07 November 2019

Ms Albert addressing guests and stakeholders during the launch of the discussion session yesterday (Photos: Anel Robert)

A national policy to better guide and coordinate the sharing of geospatial dataor geographic information is being finalised.

A revised draft of the proposed Seychelles Geospatial Data Sharing Policy was presented to a group of technicians, officers working at the Centre for Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in the Lands Department of the Ministry for Habitat, Infrastructure and Land Transport (MHILT) as well as other concerned stakeholders for their comments, views, final contributions and inputs to be considered in the review process.

This was during a half-day discussion session held at Care House yesterday morning.

Fanette Albert, the principal secretary for lands, launched the working session in the presence of the minister for MHILT Pamela Charlette.

In her opening remarks Ms Albert placed great emphasis on the increasing importance and requests for geospatial data for research, decision making, economic development thus the need for a proper sharing policy guideline.

Geospatial data or geographic information is the data or information that identifies the geographic location of features and boundaries on earth. These are natural or constructed features like oceans, rivers, road networks... Spatial data is usually stored as coordinates and topology, and is data that can be mapped. Spatial data is often accessed, manipulated or analysed through GIS.

Cynthia Adrienne, a senior GIS officer, explained that having such a policy document will guide users of spatial data on how best to share these data.

She pointed out that work on the policy started many years ago and the Centre for GIS is receiving expert support from the World Bank.

Marie-Anne Lepathy