OPERATIONAL BRIEF Knowledge, Data, and Information BLUE ECONOMY FOR RESILIENT AFRICA PROGRAM © 2022 The World Bank Group 1818 H Street NW, Washington DC 20433 Telephone: 202-473-1000 | Internet: www.worldbank.org Acknowledgments This work is a product of the staff of The World Bank Group with external contributions. “The World Bank Group” refers to the legally separate organizations of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), This brief was written by Nagaraja Rao Harshadeep In addition, the team received incisive and helpful advice, the International Development Association (IDA), the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and the Multilateral (Lead Environmental Specialist). 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BLUE ECONOMY FOR RESILIENT AFRICA PROGRAM I 1 About the Blue Economy for Resilient Africa Program The Blue Economy generated nearly US$300 billion for the African continent in 2018, creating 49 million jobs in the Key Messages process. These and other crucial benefits—most notably food security, livelihoods, biodiversity, and resilience to the effects of climate change—are entirely dependent on the health and productivity of coastal and marine areas. By safeguarding productive coastal landscapes, countries will be in a better position to take full advantage of future Blue Economy opportunities, which range from sustainable African countries and regional entities need greater investment into the blue energy to aquaculture to blue carbon. production of data for better knowledge and tracking of the state of its marine and coastal resources. The World Bank’s Blue Economy for Resilient Africa Program, announced at COP27, will provide multisectoral analytical, financial, and policy support to Africa’s coastal countries and island states to help them leverage the opportunities—and manage the risks—inherent in scaling up their Blue Economies. Many new technologies are revolutionizing the way data is collected, processed, and visualized for decision support. A new range of satellite and air-based Earth observation options are complementing traditional and modernized in-situ observations to provide more comprehensive, synoptic, and quasi-real-time data. About this series of briefs Data is increasingly processed using the power of the cloud, moving away The Blue Solutions for Africa series of operational briefs from legacy desktop systems to leverage the power of machine learning and captures how a thriving Blue Economy can help African artificial intelligence tools. countries better manage the development challenges they face while supporting economic growth, sustainable livelihoods, and the health of these precious ecosystems. Beyond data technologies, it will be important to move up in the data value chain to produce accessible knowledge products that support informed decision-making. THE BRIEFS COVER THE FOLLOWING THEMATIC AREAS • Climate change • Data management and knowledge creation Improving the organization of—and strengthening access to—data and • Coastal and marine knowledge among governments, the private sector, academia, civil society biodiversity and habitats • Innovative financing organizations, financiers, and the public will help generate multisectoral, instruments spatial, and sustainable development insights and attract more financing, • Sustainable fisheries • Developing and incentivizing including from the private sector and other development partners. • Marine pollution institutions • Jobs and livelihoods © Shutterstock • New frontiers of innovation • Participatory marine spatial planning © Freepik © Freepik 1 BLUE ECONOMY FOR RESILIENT AFRICA PROGRAM I 3 Introduction Africa has significant potential to improve its climate-smart sustainable development by focusing on the Blue Economy. However, efforts to reach this potential are stymied by poor access to relevant The Challenge data and knowledge due to inadequate historical investments Africa—with its significant natural in technology and institutional capacity for modernization. resources and increasingly capable Today, there are many opportunities to leapfrog traditional development paths by leveraging a new workforce—has significant development range of technologies. “BlueTech” refers to the innovative use of emerging technologies to scale up the development impact of the Blue Economy, while managing associated trade-offs. These technologies potential, given its rapid emergence from have the potential to accelerate the expansion of the Blue Economy—but only if countries in Africa invest historical underdevelopment. The Blue in enabling infrastructure, capacity, and services to strengthen their technological innovation ecosystem. A robust technological backbone will better be able to harness the power of the cloud, e-package data, and Economy could be an excellent way to technological knowledge to enable new ways to collect, analyze, and share data, making it more accessible accelerate this development. and usable. At the same time, it will facilitate the collaborative development of harmonized systems to generate insights into, and support decisions relating to, the Blue Economy. Realizing this great potential requires a better understanding catchment areas, coastal zones, and exclusive economic of the continent’s role in climate mitigation and adaptation, as zones—which are sometimes far greater than a country’s well as new approaches to the development of “blue” sectors land area—all require comprehensive, multisectoral insights including fisheries and aquaculture, marine and oceanic backed by detailed spatial information. For example, coastal pollution, seascape management and marine spatial planning. investments such as ports, which can cause unanticipated erosion in neighboring regions, require better coordination Improved data collection and management that draws on and stronger sources of data and analytics to support and rapidly evolving, “disruptive” technologies will be key to inform scoping, planning, and design. This is not possible with building Africa’s Blue Economy. Globally, there is a lack of the current fragmented systems used for data and analytics. data and knowledge of the marine and coastal environment and related economic activities. In Africa, the situation is Africa has great potential to rapidly develop its technological worse due to low levels of investments into information, infrastructure, which could lift millions out of poverty and institutional, and infrastructure systems, which plays out in the fuel a new age of sustainable growth. There are already form of poor monitoring; lack of interoperable data standards; good examples in every country of innovations that draw limitations in data access; institutional capacity challenges; on data-driven approaches to create improved economic, and poor and expensive internet connectivity (only social, and environmental impact. Data-driven approaches 22 percent of the population currently has internet access). will be particularly important for managing Africa’s changing climate and demography. Data and knowledge challenges hinder all aspects of sustainable development and the Blue Economy. Issues such as biodiversity loss or pollution require a good evidence base and analytical insights for action. The management of water 2 I KNOWLEDGE, DATA, AND INFORMATION 4 © Freepik BLUE ECONOMY FOR RESILIENT AFRICA PROGRAM I 5 A NEW WORLD OF DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGY “DISRUPTED” DATA VALUE CHAINS What is Needed • Data collection: Monitoring using in-situ, IoT sensors; Earth observation using satellite or drones; crowdsourcing; digitization • Data management: Telemetry; mobile networks; cloud services; open data; blockchain A range of emerging “BlueTech” options could create a • Data analysis: Big data; machine learning/artificial intelligence; modelling; script repositories; cloud new paradigm for sustainable development in Africa computing; quantum computing while driving the Blue Economy. These technologies are • Data access: Open data APIs; data visualization; gamification; mixed, augmented, or virtual reality “disrupting” traditional approaches to data and knowledge, • Outreach: Platforms and portals; social media; apps; evolving and combining at an accelerated pace to change e-books; competitions the way decisions are made, things are made, and how stakeholders interact with each other (see next page). “DISRUPTED” PRODUCTION VALUE CHAINS • 3D printing; additive manufacturing • “Digital twins”; the Metaverse • Automation; supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) • Robotics; autonomous transport • Nanotech; biotech; genomics; energy tech; green tech; agricultural tech “DISRUPTED” STAKEHOLDER VALUE CHAINS • Virtual social networks and digital platforms • Sharing economy • Crowdsourcing; gamification; competitions (e.g. hackathons) • Mobile money; fintech; cryptocurrency • Blockchain-enabled value chains • Maker movement; DIY; technology incubators • Virtual learning and reskilling Figure 1: How disruptive technologies are reshaping the world 4 I KNOWLEDGE, DATA, AND INFORMATION 6 © Curt Carnemark / World Bank / Flikr BLUE ECONOMY FOR RESILIENT AFRICA PROGRAM I 7 © Arne Hoel / World Bank Many disruptive technologies are ushering in a revolution in the way data is collected, processed, accessed, and How the World Bank visualized. A new range of Earth observation options (from satellites, drones, and other aircraft) are complementing traditional in-situ observations, which have also been modernized through new sensors that are connected to the internet, benefiting from the “internet of things” (IoT) concept. Crowdsourced data collection (such as online surveys) and real-time telemetry advances, even in remote areas, are providing more comprehensive, synoptic, and near- Group Contributes real-time data. Several countries are developing national geospatial data infrastructure to collate data from various entities and make it accessible in the public domain using standardized formats (for example, open geospatial consortium standards and open application programming interfaces, or APIs) to support interoperability. This data is increasingly being processed in the Cloud, supporting online data analytics (for example, online GIS systems or Google Earth) and the use of new machine learning and other artificial intelligence tools. The resulting information can be accessed via digital platforms in various forms, from interactive to Solutions data dashboards to extended reality, or XR, a concept that includes augmented reality and virtual reality. Advances in data collection, management, and visualization are also modernizing how knowledge is generated and used. This includes improving the availability of free knowledge resources in the public domain and helping to collate these resources, as it is difficult to find even basic knowledge products in full text across Africa on topics related to the Blue Economy. A new range of new e-packaging options are also available in the form of e-books and story maps, which can be used to disseminate data-rich knowledge using interactive charts, maps or schematics and other multimedia assets. With the World Bank Group’s support, various African governments are modernizing their These knowledge products are important tools for spatial planning and the integrated management of marine and coastal zones. institutions and leveraging new technologies to strengthen their base of coastal and marine data The benefits of technology are not limited to the digitalization of data and knowledge. Governments across Africa face many and knowledge. This, in turn, supports informed policy-making and the design of Blue Economy competing development needs. The improved organization of, and access to, data and knowledge could provide greater insights investment programs. into the tradeoffs and opportunities inherent in the sustainable development agenda, while supporting the design of Blue Economy investment programs to attract more financing from the private sector and development finance institutions. Country-level solutions Digital innovations could also streamline processes, services, and stakeholder platforms The World Bank’s technology-focused investments are primarily concentrated at national and sub-national relating to the Blue Economy. However, to levels through support for country-level projects. To date, the World Bank has supported projects in: seize the opportunities inherent in these innovations, various stakeholder groups across Africa—governments, the private sector, • Guinea: Funding from PROBLUE was used to produce a web visualization tool that maps coastal land cover academia, civil society organizations, financiers, and the changes over time. The tool can be used to, for example, visualize the extent to which rice fields have encroached on general public—will need to work together to create an mangroves since 2000. The World Bank’s support has also allowed the country to start using automatic identification enabling environment. and vessel monitoring systems to analyze marine traffic and fisheries activities in its exclusive economic zone. • Tanzania: Drones were used to take images of beaches in Tanzania and Zanzibar that, when paired with on-the-ground waste characterization and machine learning-based analytics, enabled the country to assess the extent of plastic pollution and related costs to the country. This work was also supported by PROBLUE. Creating an enabling environment for the rollout of new technologies would help leverage the • Morocco: The World Bank’s Blue Economy Program for Results supported the development of a region’s youth dividend. The market for IoT, Source: Kelley Lynch / World Bank web-based data-management tool, SIRED, which enables users to access regional information blockchain, big data analytics and artificial related to the environment and sustainable development for the Rabat-Salé-Kénitra region. is an urgent need to improve awareness of these new intelligence, among other emerging technologies, approaches and create a new generation of tech-savvy African is expected to create hundreds of trillions of dollars in value • Kenya: A fisheries information and monitoring system was developed with the support of the Kenya Marine professionals to be the engine of modernizing institutions over the next decade. Countries around the world are Fisheries and Socio-Economic Development Project, a joint initiative between the World Bank and the and approaches for sustainable development, including the investing in their youth and enabling infrastructure, services, Government of Kenya. Fisheries data captured in hard copy was transferred to an electronic database Blue Economy. and capacity-building to benefit from this revolution. There using mobile phones. This information will support future spatial planning and fisheries management. • Tunisia: The World Bank is working with the government to identify the best technology to use for stocktaking and assessing the status of various blue sectors. The World Bank estimates that tourism and fisheries alone provide about 450,000 jobs in the country. 8 I KNOWLEDGE, DATA, AND INFORMATION BLUE ECONOMY FOR RESILIENT AFRICA PROGRAM I 9 Regional solutions NEW TOOLS AND CHANNELS FOR KNOWLEDGE-SHARING In addition to supporting technological innovation at the country level, the World Bank works through various regional initiatives in Africa. These include the West Africa Coastal Areas Management Program, the South West Indian Ocean In addition to improving systems for data collection, analytics, access, and visualization, the World Fisheries Governance and Shared Growth Project, and various regional and knowledge projects. Bank is also pioneering ways to e-package information (for example, as interactive e-books and story maps) that are accessible on multiple device platforms, moving away from traditional static hardcopy publications. The West Africa Coastal Areas Management Program INNOVATIONS IN KNOWLEDGE DISSEMINATION The online Marine Spatial Planning Data Resources Catalog is a collection of tools and knowledge to The West Africa Coastal Areas Management Program initiatives. For example, it partnered with the European Space provide guidance and information, and facilitate discussions between stakeholders, during the marine spatial facilitates access to technical expertise and financial Agency’s Earth Observation for Sustainable Development planning process. resources for participating countries. Among other initiatives, Marine and Coastal resources consortium to provide services the program has supported the development of a regional and capacity building on Earth observation for marine Blue Economy Data and Tools offers a comprehensive breakdown of the types of data that are useful for Observatoire regional des littoraux d’Afrique de l’Ouest pollution, oil spill, and shoreline monitoring. Similarly, marine spatial planning, and the tools that can be used to support MSP processes. These tools range from (West African Regional Coastal Observatory, or ORLOA) France provided Benin, Togo, and Senegal with historical applied modeling tools to decision-support software to online GIS mapping tools and portals. for monitoring the coastline. The observatory is hosted data—including sea charts, bathymetric surveys, and by the Centre de Suivi Ecologique (Center for Ecological aerial photos—to help the country better understand the The BlueTech e-book catalogues global innovations that could help African nations rethink their approaches Monitoring) in Senegal. As part of this effort, the 2020 evolution of coastal erosion processes over several decades. to driving the Blue Economy. It includes a BlueTech data portal, which showcases several types of State of the Coast Report tracks changing conditions global data already available (including maps that depict global seagrass distribution, projected ocean in 12 coastal countries and makes recommendations Recently, the program published an e-book to disseminate the acidification, and global coral beaching monitoring) and a BlueTech Knowledge Resources Catalog. that will inform decision-making and policy formulation. results of its call for innovation to tackle the coastal erosion and flooding issues associated with the presence and future Other knowledge products and tools available focus on plastics, hydroinformatics (including a two- The World Bank leverages the West Africa Coastal Areas development of large commercial ports in West Africa. A week forecast for every river segment in Africa and other parts of the world), the World Bank’s external Management Program to crowd in technical expertise similar book on plastic pollution is being developed. Geospatial Platform, and Earth observation for sustainable development (in partnership with the European and data from international partners to support regional Space Agency). South West Indian Ocean Fisheries Governance and Shared Growth Project A technology-driven focus on modernizing data and knowledge can help improve the foundation for shared This innovative regional fisheries program is promoting the support for Sub-Regional Fisheries Commission, South- vision planning and implementation across sectors to modernization of sustainable fishing and knowledge exchange in Africa. Regional analytics, such as the support for the West Indian Ocean Fisheries Commission, the Regional Organization for the Conservation of the Environment of the accelerate the realization of the benefits of the Blue Regional Partnership for African Fisheries Policy Reform that produced the Climate Change and Marine Fisheries in Africa Red Sea and Gulf of Aden (PERSGA), Lake Victoria Basin Commission, Lake Victoria Fisheries Organization, and Economy while sustaining the health of coastal and ocean report, have been useful to help develop a baseline for action. others. Also see the Brief on Sustainable and Climate-Adapted ecosystems. The coming decade will be an exciting one for The World Bank has also supported fish stock assessments Fisheries for further information on these aspects. along with other surveys of associated water bodies with countries in Africa to leverage a range of emerging technologies to help invest in the Blue Economy. Several groups and networks at the World Bank are working on leveraging Other projects new “disruptive” technologies, developing interactive geospatial platforms, and developing innovative interactive knowledge repositories (see “New tools and channels for knowledge-sharing”). The global reach of the World The World Bank has recently competed a report exploring Coast, with the support of the Government of Ghana and Bank’s Open Learning Campus has also demonstrated innovative ways of issues of marine plastics, coastal erosion, and air pollution the Association of African Universities. The Center promotes promoting virtual knowledge exchange as well as in-person sessions that in some countries of the Middle East and North Africa coastal resilience through the development of technical region. The report makes innovative use of available and scientific expertise of young African professionals. The could be leveraged to scale-up learning on such evolving topics. And of data and analytics to improve insights on these aspects. Center works with the West Africa Coastal Areas Management course, given the World Bank’s deep involvement in Africa’s sustainable Program to explore opportunities like the creation of an development, the experience from the financing, convening, and knowledge The Africa Centre of Excellence in Coastal Resilience was incubation hub to support talented youth with creative business elements can be particularly useful for the Blue Economy. established by the World Bank and the University of Cape ideas related to coastal resilience. © Freepik 10 I KNOWLEDGE, DATA, AND INFORMATION will Look Like Investing in enabling Information Institutions systems, processes, and A comprehensive multi-sectoral spatial knowledge base leveraging Earth observation, modern sensors, citizen There will be a set of modern state-of-the-art institutions (including effective governance and a thriving innovation institutional capacity and science, cloud analytics, and e-packaging will be accessible ecosystem in the private sector and academia) across in open, interoperable formats to enable customized the continent within and across countries that are staffed dashboards and decision-support tools without having to by well-trained, capable youth that can use and adapt collaboration can help “reinvent the wheel” and break down institutional barriers across sectors and regions. This includes information modern technologies with ease to help with the planning, implementation, and monitoring for accelerated development unleash a new, accelerated on climate; hydroinformatics; coastal areas and littoral of all aspects of the Blue Economy. Civil society organizations change; fisheries; biodiversity; the sources, transport, and will be empowered with adequate data, capacity, and fate of key water pollutants; plastics and alternatives; blue networking to help be the bridge to local communities and development in Africa energy; socio-economic and other aspects of the marine and coastal environment in Africa that will be critical to generate insights and fuel innovative multi-sectoral analytics on the ensure transparency and good governance. that can both learn and Blue Economy. contribute to global Infrastructure good practices in Adequate financing and knowhow to effectively plan a wide rapidly evolving global good practices based on accelerating sustainable development. range of Blue Economy investments to address existing development and combination of technologies. This will and evolving challenges and effectively benefit from the require a change to a more “agile” approach based on opportunities in the Blue Economy. These infrastructure new opportunities, avoiding “stranded assets” of obsolete investments will be well coordinated across internal and technologies, and development of a more collaborative country borders to maximize impact and minimize conflict. ecosystem of institutional actors. This will require investment in foundational elements of technology, accelerated capacity- Realizing this vision will require not only financing, but a building, and building on existing institutions and initiatives. This vision for the future fueled by modern technology will include strong investments in real change in mindsets driven by improved awareness of information, institutions, and infrastructure. 10 I KNOWLEDGE, DATA, AND INFORMATION 12 © Freepik