Geospatial data taxonomy for the sustainable development goals in Africa: strengthening the capacities of selected African countries to develop geospatial information resources and services in support of the implementation and monitoring of the sustainable development goals

Abstract

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development requires quality, accessible, timely and reliable disaggregated data for measuring, monitoring and reporting on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Geospatial information was identified as an important data set for them and this study assessed the need for such information. The assessment was conducted at the level of the indicators of the Sustainable Development Goals and found that 126 (51.4%) of the indicators require geospatial information, and that some such information is required for all 17 Goals. The geospatial information has been organized into geospatial feature classes using the global fundamental geospatial data themes. For semantic reasons it is important to provide a geospatial data taxonomy for these geospatial feature classes. The geospatial data taxonomy describes the geospatial feature class, its logical data model, the collection and maintenance of the features and their use in the indicators of the Sustainable Development Goals. The geospatial information must comply with the relevant standards. To make the geospatial information discoverable and to provide information on its fitness for use, including any access restriction, the geospatial information must have complete metadata, preferably at least at the level of the data sets. This study furthers the work of the African Action Plan on Geospatial Information for Sustainable Development.