meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
Business Daily

Africa's Missing Maps

Business Daily

BBC

Business

4.4816 Ratings

🗓️ 28 December 2018

⏱️ 19 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

What role can businesses play in filling Africa's cartographical gaps? And can better maps help fight diseases like cholera?

In her third and final programme about the progress being made in properly charting the continent, Katie Prescott asks what companies can do in locations where satellite images cannot penetrate dense rainforest and cloud cover, or in slums whose streets are not navigable by Google streetview cars.

She speaks to John Kedar of Ordnance Survey, Zanzibar planning minister Muhammad Juma, Tom Tom vice president Arnout Desmet.

(Picture: Satellite images of rural Tanzania; Credit: Google maps)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome to Business Daily with me, Katie Prescott.

0:10.8

The thing about Stone Town in the heart of Zanzibar here in East Africa

0:14.3

is that in the thread of tiny streets, it's easy to get lost.

0:20.2

How do you find your way around Stone Town?

0:22.7

The richest water is coming.

0:25.2

The way you go is the way you should come back.

0:29.3

Don't branch anywhere.

0:30.6

If you branch, it means go straight.

0:32.3

If you branch anywhere, definitely you get lost because you will never find a way to go back again.

0:39.7

In the last of three programmes on Africa's missing maps,

0:42.9

I'm asking what role businesses can play in this huge data challenge.

0:47.0

If you create this mapping, this digital data, and you use it,

0:50.5

your GDP increases by, let's say, 0.2 to 0.6%.

0:54.0

Hundreds of millions of dollars, even in small countries.

0:56.5

And hearing how the location data that comes from maps can be an effective weapon in the

1:00.8

fight against diseases, like cholera.

1:03.7

That's why people die, because they didn't know how to make a place healthier.

1:09.1

They were they build.

1:11.5

That's all in Business Daily with me, Katie Prescott.

1:15.7

Yes, it's very interesting.

1:18.2

There are some statistics produced by the United Nations.

1:21.3

3% of Africa is mapped at the scale of 1 to 25,000,

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.