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AfriGIS is one of the first geospatial solutions companies to provide validated geospatial data with administrative boundaries associated with postal codes across Africa. AfriGIS has spent the last three years expanding the company’s geospatial datasets across the continent, developing a polygonal dataset (a collection of shapes defined by closed lines representing a geographic area) for 21,600 localities (towns), including 475,000 suburbs (suburbs).
Charl Fouche, Chief Operating Officer, AfriGIS
There are many attributable data overlays available to enrich datasets through the API, including points of interest, administrative-political boundaries, cadastral, deed and census data, street centerlines, postal code areas, zoning schemes, gated communities, building coverage, aggregated suburbs, and more.
Geospatial data is critical to many industries
Retailers such as fast food chains use geospatial data to locate stores and improve profitability. Couriers use it to improve first-time delivery success rates. Banks and financial services use it to comply with regulations, understand customer segments, and locate products and services. Governments use it for elections, service delivery, and taxation. There are use cases for geospatial information and analytics in nearly every industry and sector.
However, until recently, finding validated geospatial data on administrative boundaries and postal codes in Africa has been a major challenge for organizations. Different administrative structures and terminology across countries make standardization nearly impossible, while frequent political and administrative changes often result in outdated or incomplete data.
Many African countries also face limited resources for accurate data collection and maintenance. Furthermore, restrictions on data distribution and the lack of a centralized data repository raise accessibility issues. Quality issues, coupled with political and security sensitivities, further complicate the availability of reliable and detailed geospatial information, which is essential for a variety of development and logistical applications.
How AfriGIS builds datasets
AfriGIS takes a bold approach to collecting, updating and standardizing geospatial data to ensure it meets the necessary standards for validity and reliability in a wide range of applications, from urban planning and resource management to logistics and governance.
The ambitious project took three years to complete and required the meticulous collection and integration of regional data to address the specific logistics challenges facing various industries in Africa.
“We focused on Africa because of the need for better solutions in African countries, which lag behind in technological development and face significant challenges in accessing modern digital tools and infrastructure,” said Charl Fouché, COO of AfriGIS. “We recognized that more accurate and comprehensive data is urgently needed to address the unique challenges of package delivery. Logistics companies struggle without detailed postal codes or reliable administrative boundaries, which are essential for the precise distribution of goods. AfriGIS’ new dataset increases the granularity and accuracy of the information available, including not only street maps but also detailed local knowledge collected from communities.”
Administrative levels vary across the continent. For example, South Africa’s jurisdictions include provinces, district councils and municipalities, while Namibia’s regions are subdivided into constituencies, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s provinces, districts and cities are subdivided into districts, chiefdoms and groups in rural areas, and communes in urban settings.
Now, administrative levels and localities in Africa’s 54 countries are connected, and data is maintained to ensure it is up-to-date and accurate. Developing a system that meets the needs of each country requires a deep understanding and a tailored approach to ensure data accuracy and availability, both in terms of logistics and administration.
“Our task was to align our APIs with international standards and ensure they were applicable across all administrative levels,” said Fouché. “The project took three years to complete and involved collecting and integrating data from various sources to map all cities, towns and villages and their corresponding administrative structures. We now have a universal API that links postal codes to villages across Africa, making our database unique and rich.”
How Geospatial Data Drives Business
Where there are people, there is business. Knowing where people and business are located is critical; knowing what else is happening in those locations is a major advantage in accelerating and unlocking business opportunities. This is something that many organizations across Africa have longed for, but has until now been nearly impossible to achieve.
Attributable data makes it possible to visualize business stores and locations. When you overlay contract data with income and other demographic data, as well as traffic and weather patterns, retailers and other businesses can perform sophisticated modeling. For example, they can use this information to schedule special promotions tied to holidays, weather patterns, and traffic congestion caused by major sporting events.
By meeting the digital and physical infrastructure needs of different African countries, people and public and private sector organizations can access and order products online, even in remote areas where there is no physical infrastructure. This has the potential to enable countries and businesses to make a major leap forward across the continent.
“In South Africa, we take online shopping for granted. But finding and ordering products online can significantly improve the quality of life for people in remote parts of Africa,” said Fouché. “It offers greater convenience, wider choice and more competitive prices. For people in remote or underserved areas, e-commerce eliminates the need for long and expensive journeys to urban centres to buy goods and services. This reduces the daily stress associated with buying basic necessities. Online shopping also helps improve living standards by exposing people to products and technologies that may not be available locally.”
Fouché added that AfriGIS has demonstrated that digital solutions can alleviate the limitations of physical infrastructure. “By setting a precedent in the logistics and mapping industries, we are confident that our detailed, tailored data solutions will help improve the efficiency and coverage of services in a continent as diverse as Africa.”
About AfriGIS
AfriGIS is Southern Africa’s leading geospatial information science company, specialising in location-sensitive data and solutions. It provides a suite of web-based tools and APIs to all its customers to connect, enhance and enrich their data with location BroadCast Unitedligence, insights and trusted data. The company was founded in 1997, making it over 25 years old. It is a Level 1 certified Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) business with over 100 employees in Pretoria, Durban and Cape Town in South Africa, Dublin in Ireland and Dhaka in Bangladesh.
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