The Hangzhou Forum on United Nations Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM) provided a regional consultation mechanism and a platform for the exchange of views, to discuss priority issues for the regional implementation strategy of the UN-GGIM initiative. The Forum was hosted by the National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation (NASG) of China who organized this Forum jointly with the Secretariat of the United Nations initiative on Global Geospatial Information Management. The Forum was held at the Zhejiang Xizi Hotel, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China. The Forum provided delegates and participants a better understanding of key issues UN-GGIM and international organization need to focus on; an appreciation on the importance of consultations at global, regional and local levels to agree and pursue strategies towards managing all information spatially. This Forum was supported by the United Nations sponsored Permanent Committee on GIS Infrastructure for Asia and the Pacific (PCGIAP) that held is Executive Board meeting the day after the successful conclusion of the Forum.
Mr. Xu Deming, Vice Minister, Ministry of Land and Resources and Director General, National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation (NASG) of China officiated the Forum. Immediately after the Official Opening segment, Dr Li Pengde, Deputy Director General of NASG spoke on the development of China’s geospatial information followed by Dr Vanessa Lawrence, Director General and Chief Executive of the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain, and Co-Chair of the UN Committee of Experts on GGIM, on the future and emerging trends in the geospatial world. She remarked that Government’s role of setting standards and defining information frameworks, its roles of adding authority to information; of providing access to information and data sharing will continue. The Forum considered the emerging trends in institutional arrangements; evolving a new geodetic positioning framework and enabling positioning infrastructure; considerations of data quality assurance framework recognizing that the use of quality, current and authoritative national geospatial information as a valuable and critical enabler for effective decision-making for national Governments. With recent global initiatives on responsible governance of tenure of land, fisheries and forest and on spatially enabling governments and societies towards whole-of-government efficiencies, citizen-centric delivery systems and greater transparency and good governance, managing all information spatially, the vision of GGIM, is crucial. Reliable (accurate and honest) information depends on trusted data and hence data quality assurance framework, in particular, geospatial data quality assurance framework is fundamental. The Forum also considered new models in data sharing and dissemination. Dr Paul Cheung, Director, United Nations Statistics Division spoke on the desirability of a statement of ethics and supporting code of conduct for the global geospatial information profession. There is an emerging consensus that the geospatial information community should address the issue of ‘ethics’ in a coherent manner and promulgate a statement of ethics that address principles on ethical behaviors for the profession in the production, processing, analyzing and dissemination of geospatial information. We are witnessing newer generations of mobile and web services, mobile and smart communication devices, volunteered information and open data are becoming growing non-traditional means of acquiring information, such a statement will provide guiding principles for all practitioners in geospatial information world. FIG President CheeHai Teo participated in the Forum and facilitated the session on data quality assurance framework. He was joined at the Forum by Dr. Gethin Wyn Roberts, Chair of FIG Commission 6 (Engineering Surveys), Mr. Lawrence Lau, Vice-Chair FIG Commission 6 (Engineering Surveys) and Dr. Pengfei Chen, FIG Vice-President elect. Prior to the Hanzhou Forum, a number of delegates made an official visit
to NASG Headquarters in Beijing. CheeHai Teo
11 July2012 |
