Accra, Sept. 5, GNA- Ghana would host the 7th bi-annual African Conference and Exhibition on Remote Sensing of the Environment (AARSE) from 27th October, 2008 to 31st October 2008 in Accra. The conference, which will be on the theme: "Application of Earth Observation and Geo-information for Good Governance in Africa, will attract more than 500 participants and attract exhibitors from Israel, UK, Germany, US, South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya.

There would be a platform to discuss issues like: "Land Management and Administration," "Forestry Resource Management," "Infrastructure Planning and Management, "Disaster Planning and Management, "Marine and Coastal Zone Management and "Capacity Building in Space Technologies and Spatial Database Development."

A six-member local delegation of AARSE, led by Mr Jonathan Allotey, Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Agency, briefed journalists in Accra after a close-door meeting with Vice President Alhaji Aliu Mahama at the Osu Castle, on Thursday. Mr Allotey said there would be a forum for the discussion of strategies for the development of decision support tools for planning the location of social infrastructure and monitoring of deforestation, degradation and natural resources.

"Participants will brainstorm on methods to provide adequate human and institutional capacity to evolve geo-information-driven sustainable development for African countries," he said. Geo-information includes the distribution of natural resources, description of infrastructure such as buildings, utility and transport services, patterns of land use and health, wealth, employment, housing and voting habits of people.

Mr Allotey said geo-information played a key role in managing the flood disaster in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions, last year, through assessment of damage on infrastructure. Mr Kwaku Opon Tutu, Deputy Director, in charge of planning at the Department of Feeder Roads said the organisation was able to use the technology to know how far away people lived from feeder roads. He noted that geo-information would enable policy makers too know how Ghanaians are dispersed from accessible roads. The European Commission is supporting Ghana to use the technology for mapping and monitoring of development activities in Ghana. The Ghana Statistical service is using the geo-information system for enumeration area mapping and pre-census planning for the 2010 census. The technology is vital for the monitoring and evaluation of cocoa swollen shoot viral disease control in Ghana. 0