Egypt’s Ministry of Planning and Economic Development reviews the achievements of NSDI

We are working to ensure that Egypt has a comprehensive planning system designed following the best international standards: Says Hala El-Said

The Ministry of Planning and Economic Development issued recently a report on the achievements of the Spatial Information Infrastructure project (National Center for Spatial Information Infrastructure) (NSDI) until September 2021.Dr. Hala El-Said, Minister of Planning and Economic Development, stressed the ministry’s endeavor to achieve a future development vision that ensures that Egypt has a comprehensive planning system designed following the best practices and international standards to support sustainable development efforts and strategic directions.El-Said explained that the establishment of spatial information infrastructure is an important tool for conducting comprehensive planning and preparing sustainable development strategies, which contributes to making decisions based on accurate information and following up on the implementation of these decisions in an effective manner.Regarding the achievements of the spatial information infrastructure project (National Center for Spatial Information Infrastructure (NSDI), the report of the Ministry of Planning indicated what has been accomplished within the framework of the work of the availability of Satellite Imaging Unit, where satellite visuals with a spatial accuracy of 3 meters per day were made available covering the Arab Republic of Egypt, in addition to providing satellite visuals High resolution 30 - 80 cm covering populated places.The center also worked to rationalize aspects of government spending and the recurring effort in purchasing satellite images and reviewing the position of the entities’ use of the satellite images available through the project, which reached an annual estimate of the entities’ use of EGP 300 million.The project is also working on providing aerial photographs to the Egyptian General Authority for Survey, which encourages government agencies not to provide previously contracted needs to prevent double-spending, in addition to providing electronic accounts for the satellite imaging system for the concerned government agencies (65 government agencies and 27 governorates).
 The project works on providing satellite images for local services (following up development activities - building permits and reconciliations over building violations), as well as providing support for many projects and services (agricultural activities - water resources - assets - the technical secretariat for the governance of state assets).About the spatial variables unit, (26) units of spatial variables have been developed in the offices of all governorates, (292) sub-centers of spatial variables have been upgraded within the governorates at the level of the Republic, and reports of spatial variables have been issued daily with a total of 571,000 variables so far. The center also analyzes satellite images, extracts spatial variables, and follows up on spatial variables and their performance indicators.Moreover, the units of the spatial variables in the governorates provide “spatial variables certificate” services to locate building permits or reconciliation requests and determine the date of dealing on the land, as well as some other spatial data, for example (inside / outside the urban space - inside / outside the scope of reconciliation.The economic return amounted to EGP 1.8 billion on 19/5/2019 from the returns of the work of the State Land Recovery Committee within the land legalization work that takes place in the main spatial variables center. The economic return within the works of the Reconciliation Law came from depositing the proceeds of the seriousness of reconciliation amounting to EGP 9.8 billion Egyptian, in addition to participating with the governorates and the Ministry of Local Development in committees to select specialists in geographic information systems to support the system of variables with specialized technical cadres.On the spatial data unit and base maps, the report indicated the receipt of all base maps that were designed through the Department of Military Survey, the development and establishment of two spatial data units at the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation and the New Urban Communities Authority, the integration of contract data for the Real Estate Registration and Documentation Department in the ninth district of Obour City.High-resolution aerial photography of an area of ​​75,000 km2 (the governorates of Greater Cairo, the Delta, and the Suez Canal axis) was also carried out, to be used in drawing base maps at a scale of 1: 2500, in addition to providing a unified base map for the Arab Republic of Egypt at a scale of 1: 100,000, drawing a base map At a scale of 1: 2500 for detailed spatial purposes, for an area of ​​49,000 km covering 14 governorates.





As for the spatial data analysis unit, the center analyzes spatial data of various types or according to the nature of the data for the development sectors in the country, where the following applications were launched: - Project follow-up application, Decent Life initiative follow-up application, integrated base map application (data of entities with a unified base map For Sahel Salim and Waqf centers), where spatial data was received for 21 regions in the two centers. The geographical platform of Sharkia Governorate was also developed and established, in addition to providing data on carbon dioxide emissions from 29 different industries in the period from 2010-2018 at the governorate level to be added to the dashboard and map of the Arab Republic of Egypt for the modeling and forecasting unit.