UNSDI
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[edit] United Nations Spatial Data Infrastructure - UNSDI
During the Sixth UNGIWG Plenary Meeting held in Addis Ababa in October 2005, endorsement for a [United Nations Spatial Data Infrastructure (UNSDI)] to support coordinated efforts in the development and management of geo-spatial information was made.
[edit] UNSDI Compendium and Strategy Implementation Paper
A comprehensive UNSDI Compendium "Vision, Implementation Strategy and Reference Architecture" was prepared following the 7th UNGIWG Plenary in Santiago de Chile in early November as a reference companion to the "UNSDI Strategy Implementation Paper". In addition to an Executive Summary, the paper consists of four chapters:
Part 1 - Responding to a Changing World
Part 2 - Building for the Future
Part 3 - Implementing the UNSDI
Part 4 - A UNSDI Reference Architecture
plus a number of Annexes with reference materials:
The compendium can be downloaded here [1]
The strategy implementation paper can be downloaded here [2]
[edit] UNSDI development at national and regional level
Underlying the UNSDI is the need to link UNSDI with national SDI capacities, both in developed and developing countries. Constructive action has so far been taken with The Netherlands where a UNSDI–Netherlands Coordination Office (NCO) has been established, resulting in http://www.unsdi.nl. A similar process has been undertaken with the Czech Republic and Hungary, with successful kick-off meetings near Prague on 18 May and in Budapest on 28 September 2006, resulting in the establishment of www.unsdi.cz and www.unsdi.hu.
The first dialogue meeting between UNGIWG-UNSDI and national and regional-level SDI partners was held on 1 and 2 March 2007, hosted by the European Space Agency (ESA) at its ESRIN facilities in Frascati, Italy. This meeting was organized back to back with the final ESA-FAO-JRC "Heterogeneous Missions Accessibility (HMA) Workshop conducted by ESA on 27 and 28 February 2007 at ESRIN. The presentations and discussions of the UGPM meeting can be found here [3].
UNSDI development discussions are also ongoing with Spain and the Federal Republic of Germany. Furthermore, SDI authorities in the following countries and regional organizations responded positively to an open UNGIWG invitation to join the UNSDI development process: Australia, Austria, Brazil, Chile, Hungary, Jamaica, India, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, Mongolia, Nigeria, Spain and South Africa. The following regional Organizations joined the process: The Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD) in Nairobi, Kenya, the International Centre for Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in Kathmandu, Nepal, and the Regional Centre for Training in Aerospace Surveys (RECTAS) in Ile-Ife, Nigeria.
(Jan Cees Venema, UNSDI-NCO)
