Administrative Units

First Level Sub-national Administrative Boundaries for Sub-Saharan Africa
Data source: Adapted from GADM Ver 0.9

Administrative units are important for development policy formulation, investment planning, and implementation, as well as for a wide range of sub-national statistical data collection and reporting purposes. Most socioeconomic data for example is gathered and reported using sub-national administrative units. HarvestChoice draws from 4 primary sources of national and sub-national boundaries:

• SALB (Second Administrative Unit Boundaries). Coordinated and managed by the World Health Organization (WHO). The SALB dataset forms part of the UN geographic database and was developed in the context of the United Nations Geographic Information Working Group (UNGIWG). Boundaries in this database have been ratified by National Mapping Agencies.The current major thrust of this effort is to compile a complete and consistent set of first and second level administrative boundaries benchmarked to the year 2000.
• GAUL (Global Administrative Unit Layers). Is a complement to SALB coordinated out of the GIEWS program of FAO. GAUL includes a mechanism to keep track of changes in the boundaries and maintain a consistent coding system throughout the administrative layers over time. Data in this database may or may not represent officially sanctioned boundaries and the goal is to acquire a complete set of first and second level country boundaries, relying heavily on contributed data sources.
• GADM (Global Administrative Areas). GADM is a database of the location of the world's administrative areas (boundaries) developed and maintained by the University of California, Berkeley, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, and the International Rice Research Institute by Robert Hijmans, Nell Garcia, Julian Kapoor, Arnel Rala, Aileen Maunahan, and John Wieczorek. Administrative areas in this database are countries and lower level subdivisions. Data in this database may or may not represent officially sanctioned boundaries and the goal is to acquire a complete set of all levels of national and sub-national administrative unit boundaries, relying heavily on contributed data sources. GADM pays specific attention to capturing variants in admin units names, in particular to support the possibility of automated searches for geographic locations (using, e.g. Biogeomancer).
• National data sources. These are data sources gathered individually directly from countries (e.g. national mapping, statistical, or local government agencies).

Lowest Level* Administrative Boundaries for Sub-Saharan Africa
(* readily accessible in GIS formats)
Data source: GADM Ver 0.9

In Sub-Saharan Africa there are a number of organizations working on agriculture and poverty alleviation in different areas of the continent. The countries of focus for each of these regional groups are determined based on policy needs, geography, research and development, or economics. Many of the tables shown throughout the HarvestChoice site are summarized according to these country groupings. The following maps display which countries are part of which group.

Alliance for the Green Revolution in Africa – AGRA

Sub-Saharan Africa – Geographic regions

Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa – ASARECA

Conseil Ouest et Centre Africain pour la Recherche et le Developpement Agricole – CORAF

Southern African Development Community – SADC

Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa – COMESA

Economic Community of West African States – ECOWAS

For the world, HarvestChoice uses the following regional geographic breakdown.

Global geographic regions

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