United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management: an overview Peter ter Haar Ordnance Survey and UK rep at UN-GGIM Committee of Experts Luxembourg, 18 March 2014

A Global Geospatial Mandate 18th UNRCC Asia-Pacific, Oct. 2009 The 18th Session of the UN Regional Cartographic Conference for Asia-Pacific and the 41st Session of the UN Statistical Commission: Requested the Secretary-General to prepare a report for a future session of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) outlining a global vision for geographic information management, including reviewing the existing mechanisms and exploring the possibility of creating a global forum. Requested the Statistics Division to convene a meeting of an international expert group, consisting of statisticians and geographical information specialists, to address global geographic information management issues. 41st Statistical Commission, Feb. 2010

A Global Geospatial Mandate At its 43rd plenary in July 2010, ECOSOC requested the Secretary-General to submit to the Council, at its substantive session of 2011, a report on global geographic information management 43rd plenary of ECOSOC, July. 2010

A Global Geospatial Mandate At its 47th plenary in July 2011, ECOSOC, recognizing the importance of global geospatial information, established the Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM), and: Requested the Committee to present to ECOSOC in 2016 a comprehensive review of all aspects of its work and operations, in order to allow Member States to assess its effectiveness. Encouraged Member States to hold regular high-level, multi-stakeholder discussions on global geospatial information, including through the convening of global forums, with a view to promoting a comprehensive dialogue with all relevant actors and bodies.

The United Nations steps forward: Global Geospatial Information Management “There is a significant gap in the management of geospatial information globally” Paul Cheung, Director, United Nations Statistics Division, Cambridge Conference June 2011

UN-GGIM: What is it? The United Nations Initiative on Global Geospatial Information Management, an initiative to enhance and coordinate global geospatial information management Provides a formal mechanism under the UN to discuss and coordinate GGIM activities by involving Member States at the highest Government level as the key participants

Second Session of the Committee of Experts August 2012 “…building effective geospatial infrastructures and promoting greater use of geospatial information are part of a new frontier in harnessing science and technology for advancing sustainable development.” Wu Hongbo Under-Secretary General, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, August 2012

UN-GGIM: its role An Inter-Governmental mechanism to make joint decisions and set directions on the production and use of geospatial information within national and global policy frameworks Strengthen national capacity and improve global availability of authoritative, trusted, maintained, definitive mapping data and its appropriate coordination and dissemination Working with Governments to improve policy, institutional arrangements and legal frameworks Addressing global issues and contributing collective knowledge as a community with shared interests and concerns Developing effective strategies to build geospatial capacity in developing countries Realising a Vision: To make accurate, reliable and authoritative geospatial information readily available to support national, regional and global development.

Rio+20 Conference

The Future We Want: 19 June 2012

How can you measure and monitor sustainable development… …without location and geography

7th Session of the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals The SDGs will depend on human and physical geography. In order to measure and monitor change and progress you must have access to fundamental and consistent geospatial information – geography Not all targets will be equal and will require different means of measure. Indicators will need to be linked to the targets and be well defined, measurable over time, cost effective and clearly and easily communicated There will be a need to create a network of consistent global data – reliable geospatial information – to measure and monitor trends, change and progress over time in a standardized manner

The third session of UN-GGIM Committee of Experts

Geospatial Information: its importance to governments “In Namibia a country in which water is a scarce resource…spatial data is only below water in significance” Minister Alpheus G. !Naruseb, Minister of Lands and Resettlement, Namibia “We envisage a dynamic Pacific if we can be assisted in implementing the UN-GGIM Resolutions for geospatial information. We need to put in place a solid framework from local to national then regional level” Tevita Boseiwaqa, Permanent Secretary for Lands and Mineral Resourses, Fiji

Inventory of Issues Develop a national, regional and global strategic framework for geospatial information; Establish best practices in institutional arrangements, legal and common frameworks; Build capability and capacity, especially in developing countries; Assuring the quality of geospatial information; Promoting data sharing, accessibility and dissemination; Embracing trends in information technology; Promoting geospatial advocacy and awareness; Partnering with civil society and the private sector; and Linking geospatial information to statistics http://ggim.un.org/2nd%20Session/E-C20-2012-5%20Inventory%20of%20Issues%205%20July.pdf So, how will UN-GGIM make progress? One of the actions for the first committee of experts in, which was held in South Korea in 2011 was to identify certain issues which UN-GGIM could have an effect on and an impact in. the identification and refinement process led to a paper being presented to the 2nd session in August 2012. the Committee of Experts agreed on 46 issues which the committee could in the lead up to and beyond 2016. The Inventory of Issues has been summarised into the 9 thematic groups you can see here. At each Committee of Experts the work towards each of the thematic groups is discussed and any outputs discussed and voted on.

Future Trends in geospatial information management: the 5-10 year vision English | Chinese | French | Russian | Spanish | Korean

Five broad themes identified Trends in technology and the future direction of data creation, maintenance and management Legal and policy developments Skills requirements and training mechanisms The role of the private sector and non-governmental sectors The future role of governments in data provision and management

UN-GGIM: areas of engagement Future trends in geospatial information management Development of a global geodetic reference frame Development of a global map for sustainable development Establishment and implementation of standards for the global geospatial information community Development of a knowledge base for geospatial information Linking of geospatial information to statistics and other data Significant presence at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development Activities on geospatial information within the United Nations system Inventory on the status of mapping in the world Creation of regional UN-GGIM entities Future engagement areas: Legal and policy frameworks, including critical issues related to authoritative data Development of shared statement of principles on the management of geospatial information Activities relating to the integration of land and marine geospatial information

UN-GGIM Committee of Experts UN-GGIM Asia-Pacific UN-GGIM Africa UN-GGIM Arab States UN-GGIM Americas UN-GGIM Europe UN ESCAP UN ECA UN ESCWA UN ECLAC UN ECE WG 3 Place-Based Information for Economic Growth WG 1 Geodetic Reference Frame for SD WG 2 Data Sharing & Integration for Disaster Mmnt. China Rep. of Korea Japan CODIST-Geo AFREF African Reference Frame South Africa UN ECA UN ECA: Geoinfo merged with Statistics. 3/2013 CODIST meeting recommended CODIST-Geo become UN-GGIM Africa. Yet to be ratified. To be determined UN-GGIM Arab States placed on UN ESCWA Commission Agenda for 2014. First meeting in Jordan convened February 2014. Member States to be elected SIRGAS Geocentric Reference System for Americas Working Groups & Region Vocals PAIGH Pan Amer. Inst. of Geography and History Mexico Chile GeoSUR Geo. Network for Latin America & Caribbean European Environment Agency European Commission + Eurostat Euro Geographics WG1: France WG2: Sweden WG3: Italy Member States to be elected Asia-Pacific WG 1: Geodetic Reference Framework for Sustainable Development WG 2: Data Sharing and Integration for Disaster Management WG 3: Place-Based Information Management for Economic Growth Africa The Committee on Development Information, Science and Technology (CODIST) Subcommittee on Geoinformation (CODIST-Geo) subsumes the activities of the UN Regional Cartographic Conference for Africa. It also performs the functions of a “Permanent Committee on SDI” in other regions. The African Reference Frame (AFREF) is a major activity, as is capacity development. Arab States ESCWA is progressing the formation of UN-GGIM Arab States with the UN-GGIM Secretariat. Americas PAIGH: Pan American Institute of Geography and History SIRGAS: The Geocentric Reference System for the Americas GeoSUR: The CAF/PAIGH Geospatial Network for Latin America and the Caribbean The regional UN-GGIM entities need to be Member State driven and owned. Supported by International Organizations and Private Sector. 19

UN-GGIM: Europe The formation of the UN-GGIM: Europe Regional Committee has been divided into a three stage process: An inaugural phase (Preparatory Committee) consisting of four meetings spanning from November 2012 until November 2013; A transitional phase, partly overlapping the inaugural phase and spanning from the Third UN-GGIM Committee of Experts (Cambridge, UK) until the Fourth UN-GGIM Committee of Experts (New York, USA). The main goal of this phase is to ensure a smooth functioning of UN-GGIM: Europe from the moment it is formally established; An operational phase following the official establishment of UN-GGIM: Europe Regional Committee after the Fourth UN-GGIM Committee of Experts. In the operational phase, Member States assume full executive powers, in line with its terms of reference and UN remit.

Focus Points for UN-GGIM: Europe Focus Points build upon the Inventory of Issues identified by the UN-GGIM Committee of Experts (New York 2012) Concentrates on key EU Actions likely to produce results in short/mid term INSPIRE Establishment of a European Union Location Framework (EULF) European Location Framework (E.L.F.) Copernicus (formerly GMES) ESS action on Merging Statistics and Geospatial Information All provide a European perspective on global challenges and enables UN-GGIM: Europe to bring a European perspective to UN-GGIM Focus Points led to the identification of the Working Groups European Statistical System (the ESS) EULF: European Commission: create a European Union Location Framework (EULF) addressing the EU-wide, cross-sector interoperability framework for the exchange and sharing of location data and services. The EULF will consist of a package of legal acts, methodologies, specifications (and standards), guidelines, and training materials required by public administration and stakeholder communities to facilitate the implementation, use and the generalisation of the Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE) to a wider location context independently of the thematic sector (as part of e-government programmes). E.L.F: Welcome to the web site for the European Location Framework (ELF) project.  Launched in March 2013, the project will run for three years and deliver a pan European cloud platform and web services to build on the existing work of the INSPIRE Directive and enable access to harmonised data in cross border applications. Applied to areas such as emergency mapping, the project will help save lives; in commercial use it will help boost productivity and create jobs. The project brings together 30 participating companies into a collaborative consortium that includes national & regional mapping and cadastral agencies, software developers, application providers, research & academia and more.

UN-GGIM: Europe – Working Groups Cluster 1 – Data definition and access conditions Cluster 2 - Interoperability and data infrastructures for geospatial information Cluster 3 – Institutional arrangements supporting the goals of UN-GGIM

Working Group on Cluster 1 Working Group led by France Data definition and access conditions Scope: Definition of geospatial information in UN-GGIM terms, focus on data, quality criteria and use conditions. Focus Points covered: 6) Harmonised licencing conditions of authoritative geospatial data sets; 8) Analyse the respective roles of National Mapping Authorities, pan European associations and EU institutions with respect to the definition of harmonised pan European data sets; 9) Identification of a basic collection of authoritative reference GIS datasets; 10) Common framework for Points of Interest (POI) complementing reference datasets; 11) Definition of quality criteria for authoritative reference data sets; 13) Agreements on the implementation of open core global reference datasets free of charge at point of use; Consider roles and requirements of information complementing the terrestrial environment and maximise synergies between ground/marine and space based information.

Working Group on Cluster 2 Working Group led by Sweden Interoperability and data infrastructures for geospatial information Scope: Design interoperability framework for sharing geospatial information in Europe Focus Points covered: 2) Provide an overview of national location strategies and overall data policy frameworks adopted or under development in European countries and at EU level; 3) Integrate the statistical component into the geospatial framework; 4) Provide materials and examples of legal and technical institutional arrangements; 5) Impact analysis of the implementation of INSPIRE; 13) Agreements on the implementation of open core global reference datasets free of charge and at the point of use; 17) Protocols and policies for exchange of geospatial and statistical data; 20) Integrate the European Statistical System in the vision for a coordinated geospatial information management at the European level.

Working Group on Cluster 3 Working Group led by Italy Institutional arrangements supporting the goals of UN-GGIM Scope: Best practices in terms of organisations, co-operations, policy support, supporting the creation of a European location strategy for UN-GGIM. Focus Points covered: 2) Provide an overview of national location strategies and overall data policy frameworks adopted or under development in European countries and at the EU level; 4) Provide material and examples of legal and technical institutional arrangements; 18) Institutional arrangements for the work of UN-GGIM Europe; 19) Propose measures to streamline roles and responsibilities at European, national and local level, to increase efficiency and minimise duplications of effort; and 20) Integrate the European Statistical System in the vision for a coordinated geospatial information management at the European level.

UN-GGIM: Europe Current activity: Finalise efforts to create UN-GGIM: Europe through the three Working Groups Formalise the institutional arrangements for UN-GGIM: Europe Develop a formal proposal to UN-GGIM4 on the establishment of UN-GGIM: Europe

The future role of governments in geospatial data provision and management End-users should be able to consume government-assured spatial data with the level of trust in quality as they do when they get water from the tap – they are going to get what they expect. Government = bringing it all together.