By Valrie Grant, Managing Director GeoTechVision
The Fifth Session of the United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Manage-ment (UN-GGIM) ends today at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. This session of UN-GGIM, which began on August 2, brings together senior executives from national geospatial information authorities within member states and international geospatial experts from the private sector, non-governmental organizations, international organizations and UN bodies from across the globe. The formal Committee Session started on Wednesday and ends today, but was preceded by a number of related side events from August 2 – 4.
The Caribbean was well represented with over 20 participants from 16 different countries and regional organizations. A special workshop on Standards Capacity Building was planned for the Caribbean Nations and this took place on August 2 – 3. This workshop was facilitated by Trevor Taylor from the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC).
The workshop focused on various Geospatial Standards and their key applications within the region. It identified the level of capacity needed that would allow Caribbean states to achieve fully functional national Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI). Participants were encouraged to examine where along the spectrum of SDI development their country is and how they can leapfrog to the desired tier. There were discussions among the delegates on the potential for regional cooperative applications and use cases.
It was further highlighted that adopting and enforcing of standards was critical to the success of the geospatial industry in the Caribbean. This was reinforced by reflecting on the following:
Standardization is the reason for the success of the Internet, the World Wide Web, e-commerce, and the emerging wireless revolution.
The rapid advancement in technology is a catalyst for change in organizational structures, workflows and business models and this pace of change requires new thinking about the role of national SDI and the commensurate investments. At the heart of this change process is the adoption of open standards that facilitates interoperability which then provides a smoother transition path.
The workshop ended with Caribbean nations, including Guyana, pledging their commitment to actively look at how to incorporate geospatial standards at a national level. As a follow-up to this workshop, the nation states are expected to conduct a detailed country evaluation regarding the maturity level of their national SDI and report back to the technical committee of the UN-GGIM- Americas Caribbean project.
It is expected that the Global Geospatial Information Management meeting will augur well for the recognition of the strategic and critical role that geospatial information management plays in support of sustainable economic development goals.
Next week’s article will focus on the key outcomes of this very important Global Geospatial Information Management forum.
