Senior officials of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) are currently in Ghana to review the country’s national ICT policy, and they have pinpointed online geographical information as a key concern.

The Ghana ICT for Accelerated Development (ICT4AD) Policy represents the vision for Ghana in the information age. And it is based on the policy framework document, dubbed “An Integrated ICT-led Socio-economic Development Policy and Plan Development Framework for Ghana”, which was released in 2003.

UNECA wants Ghana to focus more on mapping locations online and implementing this initiative as part of its policy.

“There are four components and one of them is geo information. We want this to be part and parcel of the national ICT framework so that it can be integrated into every aspect of development,” said the director of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, Ms. Aida Opoku-Mensah.

Though she did not disclose the number of officials from UNECA, Opoku-Mensah pointed out that UNECA had assisted Ghana to “acquire up-to-date satellite images of Accra” to help with a street naming initiative.

Geospatial technology or geomatics is the use of technology for the gathering, storing, processing and delivering geographic or spatial information.

She however said that the technology was not being utilised to its full potential on the African continent.