FIG President Stig Enemark Attends the The Eighteenth United Nations Regional Cartographic Conference for Asia & the Pacific (UNRCC-AP)United Nations Headquarters, Bangkok, Thailand, 26-29 October 2009
President Stig Enemark attended the Eighteenth United Nations Cartographic Conference for Asia & the Pacific (UNRCC-AP) held in Bangkok 26-29 October 2009. The conference is convened every three years (since 1955) the last one being held in Bangkok, September 2006. The conference was organized by the UN Statistics Division in Bangkok at the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and headed be Mr. Paul Cheung, Director of the United Nations Statistical Division (UNSD). The conference provides a regional forum where approximately 200 participants (mostly heads of Mapping Agencies and Land Surveys and experts from Asia and the Pacific and other regions, as well as representatives from International Organizations and NGO´s meet to address the common needs, problems and experiences in the field of Geospatial Information Management and related institutional and capacity building issues. The conference provided a unique platform for discussion and understanding of the regional needs, and for networking with national agencies and other NGO´s. The conference was chaired by the President of the 18th UNRCC-AP Mr. Greg Scott from Australia. The overall theme was “Spatial Enablement and the Response to Climate Change and the Millennium Development Goals”. The program and proceedings of the conference is available on line at: http://unstats.un.org/unsd/METHODS/CARTOG/unrccap.htm. Stig Enemark presented the conference keynote “Spatial Enablement and the Response to Climate Change and the Millennium Development Goals”. The paper included the role of land governance in response to climate change and natural disasters and in support of the MGDs. The paper was very well received. Other keynotes were given by Mr. John Schneider, Geoscience Australia; and Associate Professor Abbas Rajabifard, President of GSDI. The Permanent Committee on Geographical Information Systems Infrastructure for Asia and the Pacific (PCGIAP) reported from the four working groups of which especially working group 3 on Land Administration as closely related to work of FIG Commission 3 and 7 (see e.g. the last working group meeting held in Tehran, May 2009 http://www.fig.net/news/news_2009/tehran_may_2009.htm). This working group has been lead by Prof. Ian Williamson over the last nine years and he is now stepping back. All working group reports are available on the conference website. An invited pre-conference meeting was held Sunday 25 October to discuss the proposal of UNSD to establish a United Nations Committee on Global Geographic Information Management. A general consensus was reach for this idea. Such a forum should play a leadership role in setting the agenda for further development of geographic information, and promote the use of geographical information to address key global challenges (poverty reduction, sustainable development climate change and disaster management) and, thus, raise the professional visibility. The forum should further propose principles for standardization; collect good practices; provide a vehicle for liaison and coordination; and provide a platform to develop effective strategies on how to build and strengthen capacity for the management of geographic information especially in developing countries. A first UN global conference on Geographic Information Management will be organised in 2011. The outcome of the conferences is summarized in the adopted resolutions which will be posted at the conference website. Read more:
13 November 2009 |
