The United Nations is to bring together the world’s national mapping agencies and other geospatial organisations to develop a streamlined and integrated framework that would support global geospatial information management.
“There is general agreement of an urgent need for an inter-government consultative mechanism that can play a leadership role in setting the agenda for the development of global geospatial information, and to promote its use to address key global challenges; to liaise and coordinate among member states, and between member states and international organisations,” a UN statement said.
According to Hiroshi Murakami, Co-chair of the second preparatory meeting on Global Geospatial Information Management (GGIM), while there are various international organisations that have been working on geospatial information, the UN feels that there is a need for an official mechanism that would link the outcomes of such organisations to specific policy decisions and actions of member states.
The purpose of the GGIM would be to address the growing number of global issues such as: climate change; natural disasters; disease pandemics; population and displacement; and, other cross-border problems that no single nation or region can self-sufficiently deal with.
The UN would provide the member states with an ideal venue for global policy development on geospatial information management with much attention and insights from key policy makers and experts from other member states and international organisations.
The GGIM would serve as an apex entity of the global geospatial information community that would link all regional cartographic conferences together.
Published by: Future Gov Asia Pacific on February 14, 2011
Full article: http://www.futuregov.asia/articles/2011/feb/14/un-establish-entity-global-geospatial-information-/
