INTER-AGENCY MEETTING ON "CARTOGRAPHY AND GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SCIENCES" TO BE HELD AT HEADQUARTERS FROM 28-30 MARCH

Press Release
PI/1232

INTER-AGENCY MEETTING ON ‘CARTOGRAPHY AND GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SCIENCES’ TO BE HELD AT HEADQUARTERS FROM 28-30 MARCH

The United Nations Cartographic Section will hold a historic inter-agency meeting -- "Cartography and Geographic Information Science" -- at Headquarters from 28 to 30 March with a view to creating a common organizational geographic database.

The Cartographic Section envisages that such a database would reflect United Nations views and policies, and would "revolutionize the way various components of the Organization interact in pursuit of common goals". Currently, United Nations operations in peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance and other social and environmental programmes still rely largely on paper maps which are often dated and do not facilitate comparative analysis of relevant substantive issues or information exchange.

Participants in the three-day event will come from a number of United Nations agencies, including the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat), the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the World Health Organization (WHO). A number of international observers will also attend.

They will consider several topics, including problems and data needs in areas such as field operations, environment and health, and political and development issues. Other sessions will be held to provide general cartography and geographic information and to discuss collaboration between participating United Nations offices, agencies and programmes in developing the geographic database.

To realize the objective of developing and maintaining a global geographic database consisting of basic cartographic elements and toponymic information, the project will be based on commonly applied business principles such as needs assessment and cost factor considerations. It will be implemented in several phases. The first phase will examine the needs of every organizational entity, develop hardware and network designs, and establish collaborative arrangements between the United Nations, national mapping agencies and industry partners, among other strategies.

The character of the database will comprise geographic data at various scales. Layers of the data will include international boundaries, coastlines, transportation networks, elevation and settlements. The database will be maintained as a distributed network with participating agencies serving as the custodians of their respective data layers.

- 2 - Press Release PI/1232 27 March 2000

It is expected that a common geographic database would enable many United Nations departments and bodies to experience direct cost-saving benefits, and would boost transparency and global awareness of many of the fundamental issues the Organization handles. It would also be beneficial to developing countries where digital geographic data are unavailable. Further, organizers believe that understanding the geography of conflict, hunger, diseases, poverty and natural resources could lead to more powerful preventive measures.

For further information, access the Department's Web page at http://www.un.org/Depts/Cartographic/english/htmain.htm.

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