Africa Regional Data Cube (ARDC) is Helping Countries in Africa Report on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGS)

There has been a need for African countries to report on United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to keep up with other developed nations. However, there has been a lack of data especially geospatial that can be used by National Statistics Offices (NSOs) to report on SDGs. The Africa Regional Data Cube (ARDC) is part of the Open Data Cube (ODC) and represents an example of multi-stakeholder collaboration and responding to country-level demand. The ARDC was created by the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites in partnership with GPSDD, Office of the Deputy President representing Kenya, Group on Earth Observation (GEO), Strathmore University, and Amazon Web Services. The ARDC offers free and open satellite data to address the SDGs. The ARDC allows users to select and analyze time series Earth Observation datasets to study land change and report on SDGs. In this paper, ARDC countries namely Ghana, Kenya, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Tanzania showcase some of their work in reporting on SDGs 2.4.1, 6.6.1, 11.3.1, 14.5, 15.1.1 and 15.3. Further, the countries have been able to institutionalize ARDC into various technical committees that have helped develop thematic use cases, which contribute and inform country specific policy. The preliminary results are useful for NSOs on reporting on SDGs and contributing to national development agenda including the Africa Union Agenda 2063. Overall, the ADRC provides opportunities for countries in Africa to report on SDGS.