GAF AG Establishes Information System for Madagascar

GAF AG (Germany) has been awarded a consulting service contract by PGRM – the Mineral Resources Management Project in Madagascar - funded by the World Bank / International Development Association (IDA).

Madagascar has extensive mineral potential, which has been largely ignored and scarcely exploited. Therefore, the Ministry of Energy and Mines in Madagascar together with the World Bank have set up PGRM with the aim of developing the mining sector and consequently, accelerating the social and economic development of the country. Key activities include the creation of favourable conditions to encourage private, national and foreign investment into Madagascar and its mining sector; the improvement of the geological database and the active promotion of the country’s mineral wealth to the international community.

A government priority is the updating and reinforcement of the geological and mining databases. This priority is addressed by the project BPGRM; the establishment of a database for the management of the mineral resources of Madagascar.

The overall objective is to design and implement BPGRM as a nationwide geological information system for the interpretation, analysis and exploitation of existing and future geological, geo-physical and mining information for Madagascar. Initially, BPGRM shall manage and optimise the use of existing geological and mining information, which will be incrementally supplemented with new field data, collected using a variety of ground-based and remote methods. In addition, the system will generate core products such as on-demand maps regarding various aspects of the mining potential of Madagascar, thereby promoting the sector and attracting investor interest.

The project comprises the following components:

• establishment of a nationwide geological and mining database
  
• design and implementation of the information system with specific components for database management, GIS, image processing and geophysical and geochemical data processing and analysis.
  
• specification of IT equipment and software
  
• integration and interpretation of the data and development of key products such as mineral potential maps
  
• know-how transfer and training of counterpart staff of the Ministry of Energy and Mines
  
• promotion of products and services including a BPGRM website. An initial website on BPGRM highlighting first results has been established and is located at www2.gaf.de/bpgrm.