United Kingdom to Host Meeting of United Nations Committee of Experts

on Global Geospatial Information Management, 24-26 July

 

More than 280 to Participate in Joint Special Session with Cambridge Conference

As part of its global outreach in support of the development and use of geospatial information to promote sustainable development, the United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management will hold a special joint session with the Cambridge Conference from 24 to 26 July.  The Ordnance Survey will host a special one-day senior executive knowledge-exchange and information-sharing session on geospatial data collection and management on 27 July.

More than 280 geospatial information leaders from over 75  Member States and 40 international organizations will participate in the Committee’s third session, at the Corn Exchange, Cambridge City Centre, United Kingdom.  Its first two sessions were held in Seoul, Republic of Korea, in 2011, and New York in 2012.

Delivering the keynote address will be Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach, the United Kingdom’s Vice-Chief of the Defence Staff, who will discuss the authoritative power of geographic information.  That will be followed by a Ministerial Session in which participants will share their experiences of “driving efficiency, growth, innovation, international development, the digital economy, and modernizing government”.

The session will begin formally in the afternoon and continue over the next three days, with discussions and deliberations.  It will conclude with the proposal and adoption of resolutions to be implemented, guiding the future work of Committee of Experts.  One expected outcome is the proposal to table a draft text during the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly that would urge Governments to support a global geodetic frame and related infrastructure.

In the period between the Committee’s first and second sessions, Member States, regional groups, special working committees and international geospatial information organizations have undertaken work on a number of themes identified from a global inventory of geospatial information management issues.  During the Cambridge meeting, senior executives from national geospatial information authorities, as well as geospatial experts, will be continuing that work by engaging in important visioning and strategic sessions that will address fundamental issues, such as the global geodetic reference frame; the creation of legal and policy frameworks to support the use of authoritative geospatial data; the development of a global map for sustainable development; the establishment and implementation of standards; the linkage of geospatial information to statistics; and the development of a shared statement of principles for the global geospatial community.

Cross-border challenges, such as climate change, natural disasters, disease pandemics, food and economic crises, are of a global nature, requiring both national and global policy responses.  The effective use of location-based (or geospatial) information helps to address many of the challenges facing the world.  The Committee of Experts provides the multilateral and intergovernmental collaboration mechanism that brings countries and international organizations together to discuss, identify and exchange geospatial information management experiences and best practices.  It also provides leadership in defining the agenda for the development of global geospatial information, thereby enabling Member States and all citizens to benefit from its use.

Strengthening the global geodetic reference frame will be one of the important items for discussion during the session.  Precise positioning is being applied in virtually every aspect of people’s lives, from civil engineering, agriculture, construction, mining, recreation, financial transactions, transportation, disaster response and emergency management, environmental studies to scientific research.  Economic development enabled by location-based services now relies heavily on the guaranteed availability of ubiquitous access to geospatial data from high-quality geodetic reference systems and frames.  It has, therefore, become essential for Governments to establish and maintain a sound national geodetic reference frame, which could serve as the foundation for a global system.

For additional information on the third session, including the agenda and technical reports, please visit:  http://ggim.un.org/ggim_committee.html.

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For information media • not an official record