Updates at SDI East Africa blog and listserv

"A Matter of Reliability, 26 August 2007 – a pertinent reminder that as SDI-EA colleagues try to promote SDI and build interoperability amongst distributed services, the fragility of the communications and transportation infrastructures remain a constraint."

RL: Mick Wilson's blog initiative once again gets a well deserved mention.
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Tanzania – Strengthening a Livelihoods-Based? Food Security and Nutrition Information System

"In March this year, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives (MAFC) in partnership with FAO, WFP, UNICEF and FEWSNET organized a two-day Stakeholders Workshop on “Strengthening a Livelihoods-Based? Food Security and Nutrition Information System (LFSNIS)” in Tanzania. The aim of the workshop was to create a common understanding among stakeholders of current trends and past practices in food security and nutrition (FSN) and livelihood analysis and to identify the best and most appropriate course of action to take to establish a more coordinated cross-sectoral analysis system."

RL: Based on the further writings in this article there is an increasing awareness of the need for centralizing and coordinating data across ministerial, organizational and geographical boundaries. Richard Kasuga's presentation Towards SDI Decision Support for Agricultural Planning in Tanzania at the GSDI 8 conference in Cairo seems to be related.
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Map Africa 2007, 29-30 October 2007, Cape Town, South Africa

"This is the 2nd Annual Map Africa Conference and Exhibition covering the field of geospatial technologies and their applications. Organised by GIS Development, the Conference aims to strengthen the African community in the adoption and usage of geospatial technologies for planning and developmental activities. Along with the conference, there will be a 2-day Exhibition which will show case the latest products and solutions from the Geospatial vendors and service providers. The theme of Map Africa will continue to be 'Geospatial Capacity Building and Infrastructure', a theme that is closely linked to expansion in economic activities and is therefore a part and parcel of the overall system of economic transformation."
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Call for expressions of interest – Central and East Africa Maps for Humanitarian Response Meeting

"Carrie Howard, Regional Information Management Officer, UN-OCHA Regional Office for Central and East Africa (RO-CEA), hopes to pull together a Regional Maps for Humanitarian Response meeting in early 2008 and am interested in locating institutional partners in the region."
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HostGIS Linux – perspective from a colleague working on projects in Tanzania

"HostGIS Linux is a Linux/GNU distribution specifically made for handling GIS information. It is open source and may be downloaded, modified, and redistributed free of charge. HostGIS Linux includes Apache webserver with PHP, MapServer?, MapScript? (for PHP, Perl and Python), PostGIS (GIS enabled PostgreSQL database server), MySQL database server and administrative tools like Webmin, phpMyAdmin and phpPgAdmin. The install also includes sample maps and mapping frameworks. Ragnvald Larsen, working on projects in Tanzania, has been using the open source MapServer? initiative on several platforms. He reports that using HostGIS Linux has made it easy for him to focus on making web-based GIS solutions, with less time spent on installing, compiling and dealing with other perky details. “With this tool you could basically set up a web mapping server within hours serving maps for browsing using Internet Explorer or Firefox,” says Ragnvald Larsen. “This could enable your business to establish solutions for external or internal users using prepared shapefiles. More advanced solutions with user annotations from web maps recorded in a database could also be set up rather easily.”"
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Call for researchers - Katavi National Park, Tanzania

"Tanzania's Katavi National Park, with a size of 4,471 sq. km., is the third largest park in the country. Located on the western side towards Lake Tanganyika, the park is endowed with high densities and diversity of herbivores, carnivores, birdlife as well as insects. Unexplored and wild, Katavi has a mosaic of habitats which enable it to accommodate one of the highest mammalian biomasses among East African protected areas. Unfortunately, the absence of research studies on park resources and ecological processes hinders science-based management decisions. The current park management is therefore calling for interested researchers to work in Katavi and help inform the long-term management of this jewel in the Tanzanian protected areas system. "

RL: Previously announced on the TZGISUG list.
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Some courses

• Postgraduate certificate course - Applications of Earth Observation and GIS in Integrated Water Resources Management, 7 January – 25 April 2008 (16 weeks), Nairobi, Kenya
• Southern and East African Mineral Centre (SEAMIC) 2007 courses, Geoinformation Department, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania
• GIS and Remote Sensing 2007 Short Courses at University College of Lands and Architectural Studies (UCLAS), at the Centre for Information and Communication Technology (CICT), Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania

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Jobs

• Head GIS/RS Unit & Head NRM/Ecology Research Unit, Nanyuki, Kenya
• GIS Officer- Laikipia Elephant Project, Nanyuki, Kenya
• Project Director, Project Manager & Technical Specialist-Land? Use Planner/Ecologist, Gulu, Uganda
• Open positions with the National University of Rwanda Center for Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing (CGIS-NUR), Huye, Rwanda.
• Interdisciplinary Research Coordinator, Iringa, Tanzania

RL: This is a list of jobs available in Tanzania and Neighbouring countries. More information is available in the newsletter.
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