Information for Africa
Information for Africa provides regular news updates on spatial and survey data projects being implemented in South Africa, Africa and internationally.
-
12 February 2012
-
12 February 2012What is ADAMADAM helps to better understand how funds of national and international assistance are allocated and which sectors are the most targeted in a given time span. It also provides overviews, by region or country, on resource partners’ recent commitments to areas related to FAO’s mandate. Information on privileged funding mechanisms, as well as key details on resource partners’ internal processes are also included. Users may browse and/or aggregate ADAM data in the form of tables, charts, maps and download it or create reports directly from the application.The platform may be used to analyze the situation of one specific country or to generate global/regional matrices, maps and charts showing cross-country aspects of the ODA (e.g. which donor is active in a specific country; total budget allocation by country and sector; etc.). ADAM’s basic functionalities include:i) Use of basic statistical functions to aggregate data as needed;ii) Easily retrieve and visualize data on each party’s priorities, areas of intervention, funding modalitiesand frameworks, implementing partners, etc.iii) Filter and link these elements and statistically analyze them;iv) Standard and ad-hoc reports and outputs to be included in other websites (e.g. charts, maps, etc.).ADAM Agricultural DevelopmentAssistance Mapping toolpowered
What is Agricultural Development Assistance Mapping (ADAM)
ADAM helps to better understand how funds of national and international assistance are allocated and which sectors are the most targeted in a given time span. It also provides overviews, by region or country, on resource partners’ recent commitments to areas related to FAO’s mandate.
Information on privileged funding mechanisms, as well as key details on resource partners’ internal processes are also included. Users may browse and/or aggregate ADAM data in the form of tables, charts, maps and download it or create reports directly from the application.
The platform may be used to analyze the situation of one specific country or to generate global/regional matrices, maps and charts showing cross-country aspects of the ODA (e.g. which donor is active in a specific country; total budget allocation by country and sector; etc.). ADAM’s basic functionalities include:
i) Use of basic statistical functions to aggregate data as needed;
ii) Easily retrieve and visualize data on each party’s priorities, areas of intervention, funding modalitiesand frameworks, implementing partners, etc.
iii) Filter and link these elements and statistically analyze them;
iv) Standard and ad-hoc reports and outputs to be included in other websites (e.g. charts, maps, etc.).ADAM Agricultural DevelopmentAssistance Mapping toolpowered
-
1 February 2012
Andre's paper shows the different methods of visualizing information, especially geographic data. An interesting and very powerful mechanism is using Self-Organizing Maps or SOM to map data with at least three dimensions - location, attributes and time.
-
24 January 2012
The Department of Communications (DoC) continued to push rural connectivity and has identified 161 areas on which to focus with the aim of bridging the rural/urban divide by 2020.
The DoC intended to establish 400 access centres, including community post offices and outlets, for rural people to access communication services, said Communications Minister Dina Pule on Tuesday.
“Providing connectivity to our impoverished rural communities is a key priority because communications is a human right and it also facilitates development,” she said.
Further, the DoC was completing a broadband mapping study identifying existing broadband infrastructure and service gaps. However, initial estimates indicated that establishing sufficient broadband infrastructure in South Africa required significant investment and could only be achieved through a partnership between the public and private sectors.
-
27 January 2012
Twitter is often thought of as a European and American phenomenon. But how does Africa use the social networking tool?Tweetminster and Portland have analysed more than 11.5m geo-located Tweets from the last three months of 2011. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, use of Twitter is dominated by Africa's richest country: South Africa sent twice as many Tweets (5,030,226) as the next most active Kenya (2,476,800). Nigeria (1,646,212), Egypt (1,214,062) and Morocco (745,620) make up the remainder of the top five most active countries. According to Portland, 68% of those polled said that they use Twitter to monitor news. They've produced this neat visualisation to show the distribution of tweets.
AfricaScope news
General news
-
12 February 2012
-
12 February 2012
-
8 February 2012
President Jacob Zuma at the ANC's 100 year celebrations identified unemployment, poverty and inequality as the three greatest issues needing South Africa's attention. According to a BizCommunity press release he was also quoted as saying that "as we move into the future...
In the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) the leaders of the continent have agreed that for the future development of Africa there is a need for: