A new beginning: a collaborative partnering approach towards African geodata — African Resource Geoscience Initiative (ARGI) prospectus

IntroductionGeoscientific data (geodata) represents one component (amongst others) required to make informed strategic decisions to drive economic and social development, and ensure environmental protection. Making geodata simply and readily available to government and industry enables effective decision-making. The African Union Commission recognises that geodata provides a foundation to facilitate economic growth (by stimulating industry and inward investment), social development (through jobs and security, transparency and reduction in corruption), and improve environmental management. The African Union Commission also acknowledges that it is important to build confidence and enhance trust between the public and private sector in order to attract exploration investment.

Under the auspices of the African Union Commission, we are embarking on a new form of Public Private Partnership (PPP) that is based on the concept of ‘Partnering for mutual success’ where government, industry, and commercial organisations collaborate in maximizing the value of pre-competitive geoscience data (geodata). An important goal of such a partnership

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is to prove its sustainability as a stand-alone commercial service that fulfils the requirements of a wide range of public and private stakeholders. We recognise that expanding the economic opportunities within the metals and minerals ‘space’ is the ‘common purpose’ for each of our respective groups and where we can create ‘shared value’ for both society and business. There is growing recognition that expanding economic and social opportunities is a desired outcome for African countries and the lifeblood for both mineral resource companies and the service companies, including environmental services, that support this space.

Pilot project conceptThe pilot project concept is the culmination of a workshop held in Entebbe, Uganda (23–24 March 2017) that brought together key stakeholders across Africa to identify innovative ways for management and delivery of geodata that contributes to social and economic structural transformation, wealth creation, and poverty reduction. There was unanimous agreement to start with a pilot project as a proof of concept (study) to assess the viability, time, cost, positive and negative impacts of a concept (idea) with the intention of implementing the concept on a broader scale across Africa. The purpose of this project is to make available, within a defined test pilot area, all pre-competitive geoscience data (geodata); publicly and freely accessible through a hosted geoscience portal for a period of three years. Pre-competitive data can be defined as data that informs early stage decision-making across a broad range of economic and societal applications. Generally, it consists of geological, geophysical, and geochemical data at some reasonable resolution (i.e., regional or 1:250 000 scale) and that it is both meaningful and useful. The primary motivation for selecting the test pilot areas would be mineral resource development. We also envisage examining other applications for the geoscience data (geodata) like infrastructure support, water resources management, land-use planning, agriculture, environment and socio-economic development.

Aside from exploring the need for and economic benefits of accessible geoscience data (geodata) for mineral development, we will be undertaking three research projects on:

Downstream economic/social benefits — we would engage with resource exploration companies to track the downstream economic/social benefits from the pilot project over the three years. The outcomes will include quantification of the extent of take up of the hosted geoscience portal and on the ground interaction with users to identify the pre-competitive data impact. It will include the implications on the small-scale artisanal mining communities in the test pilot areas

Non-extractive economic and social benefits — 0ne key outcome of the Uganda workshop was the agreement to include a broader suite of data with the minerals data. This would include infrastructure support, land use planning, agriculture, water resources, and environmental data. The result would be a more holistic view of the sector and its establishment and future impact on infrastructure and the environment. Examples might be in identifying available water supply, baseline air-quality information and forest and agricultural use and protection and possibly early warning for potential natural calamities/disasters such as earthquakes.

Sustainability — the pilot project is intended as a proof of concept. Governments and other public/private suppliers of these data will need to find and test a mechanism to maintain the portal past the

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pilot project period. The sustainability of the pilot project must stay within the African Mining Vision and as per recommendation 2–Section E of the ‘Adopted recommendations’ from the African Union AMGI meeting of 27–28 October, 2014 (Option A). We would also examine whether the portals themselves can be self-sustaining (Option B) by generating revenues from value-added products and services (internally and externally).

We will also be developing and testing capacity building (value-added services) that would support local beneficiation and create commercial opportunities for our respective stakeholder organisations. The provision of value-added services is thought to be one of the significant success factors in making the public private partnership (PPP) a sustainable service. The suggested test cases would be:

Minerals promotion — if by providing a series of 3D Earth models and mineral prospectivity maps over the test pilot areas, will this lead to an increased number of licence applications (other contributing factors are applicable though)?

Other government departments — to investigate how your geological survey could provide services to provide geodata information for applications like transportation, land-use planning, agriculture, water resources management, environment and socio-economic development, etc.

5 star data services — the BGS will work with your geological survey to deliver 5 star data services through the OneGeology OGC catalogue and make all data will be made available for viewing and downloadable through the hosted geoscience portal.

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For more information please contact:

Jenny ForsterBritish Geological Survey, Keyworth, Nottingham NG12 5GG, UK

tel: +44 (0)115 936 100 email: jforster@bgs.ac.uk

Cloud services — Geosoft will work with your geological survey to develop the skills so as to manage cloud services within your geological survey.

Geodata validation — we will engage with applicable resource exploration companies to ascertain whether there is any correlation of the geodata (pre-competitive and value-added) with measurable exploration information (i.e., drill core results).

Expression of interestIt was decided at the Entebbe meeting to accept the offer from Uganda to host the first pilot project. The Uganda pilot project is a collaborative initiative between African Union Commission (AUC), the British Geological Survey (BGS), the Uganda Directorate of Geological Survey and Mines, IGS (International Geoscience Services) Ltd, Geosoft Inc. and the Ugandan Chamber of Mines and Petroleum (UCMP).

We are in the position to expand the pilot project concept to an additional country outside the East African Region. This prospectus is intended as a means to engage with your country and gauge your interest in considering the pilot project concept.