Transboundary Data Sharing for Natural Resources Management in Africa and Elsewhere

Session Organisers: Monica Morrison

Session Description:

Sound management of water, land and biodiversity resources in Africa increasingly depends on regional cooperation. A mix of public and private sector institutions has been formed across the continent to facilitate negotiations around natural resources that cross borders. These special units of regional economic communities, river basin and lake organisations, protected area institutions, and regional research consortia must collect and process data to develop shared understanding of the natural environment and the ways it is being put to use in affected countries. This is especially important in the context of climate change that affects entire regions.

Already engaged in heroic efforts to transcend local political conditions and issues of sovereignty, many of these institutions face pressure to develop and maintain decision support systems that allow preservation and re-use of data from multiple – and diverse - sources. Disaster management, control of illegal wildlife use, agreeing about access to surface and ground water, and preventing the spread of alien invasive species, for example, require synthesis of research data from different countries and regions. This, in turn, requires harmonisation of standards and formats, and agreement about the use of terminology, as well as a high level of political sensitivity and understanding of regional, national and local legal and economic conditions. Determining ownership and responsibility for geographically related data is an important part of the process. In many cases, it is not possible to consolidate useable data in a single system that allows access to all potential users across political and administrative boundaries.

Time-limited development aid programmes and projects that include a cross-border research mandate often finish their work by handing over the data they have collected,and associated data management systems, to local institutions that often have not been thoroughly engaged in the work, may not have the capacity to maintain these resources, and that are missing the collaborative connections and history of productive interactions created by the transboundary programme. In some cases, data resources may be preserved outside their contextual environment,not easily accessible for contributing to new knowledge and insights.

Engagement processes developed to facilitate the substantive work of African transboundary institutions and programmes may have the potential to incorporate the requirements of such knowledge infrastructures. Under the theme of  A Global and Inclusive Data Revolution, this session proposes to examine the needs, challenges and enabling practices of data sharing for transboundary natural resources management through presentations of case studies from Africa.

Papers are invited from researchers, practitioners and beneficiaries with experience in negotiating joint development and application of knowledge resources to natural resources management challenges that transcend the continent’s national and regional boundaries.