The Africa Regional Data Cube (ARDC), based on the Open Data Cube infrastructure, is a technological innovation that layers 17 years of satellite imagery and Earth observation data for five African countries: Ghana, Kenya, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Tanzania. It was developed as a partnership between the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, NASA, CEOS, GEO, AWS, Government of Kenya, and Strathmore University in Kenya. The ARDC stacks imagery across a time series and makes the data – which is compressed, geocoded, and analysis-ready – accessible via an online user interface and Python application notebooks. The ARDC was created in response to data needs and gaps identified by partner countries and based on examples of some countries’ successful usage of Open Data Cube technology. Since its adoption as a solution, it has taken a significant commitment of time and resources to effectively build capacity and increase the use of the ARDC.
The purpose of this study is to document the various governance frameworks that have been developed and implemented in the five pilot countries and identify the key enabling environment and data management and sharing factors that affect the operationalization of the ARDC. The findings and recommendations from this study are intended to help inform the scale-up of the technology and approach across additional countries.
