EuroGeographics offers expertise to help strengthen global geospatial infrastructure at UN-GGIM

EuroGeographics has reaffirmed its commitment to using its expertise in authoritative data to help strengthen the global geospatial infrastructure.

At the 11th Session of the United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM), the Association offered its extensive experience and a strong regional knowledge exchange network to support a range of international initiatives. This includes implementation of the UN Integrated Geospatial Information Framework (IGIF), the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Geospatial Roadmap, the Global Geodetic Reference Frame, and the Framework for Effective Land Administration (FELA).

Léa Bodossian, Secretary General and Executive Director, EuroGeographics said: “Our strength lies in our extensive membership of national mapping, cadastral and land registration authorities (NMCAs) from the whole of geographical Europe. This, combined with our well-established knowledge exchange network, means we are uniquely placed to facilitate coordination, collaboration and communication within the international geospatial community.”

“We are pleased to continue our active participation in UN-GGIM as an Observer organisation. By highlighting our members’ role as providers of authoritative geospatial data and services to address the key regional and global challenges, we aim to ensure that distinctive voice and interests of European NMCAs are heard.”

The not-for-profit Brussels based organisation made a series of interventions at GGIM11 including:

Offering its support to help with the communication, promotion and knowledge sharing of experiences related to the implementation of IGIF and in building a bridge between the statistical and geospatial communities.

• Welcoming the federated approach for the Centre of Excellence in Germany, noting that the GGRF can only be successfully sustained through a collaboration between Member States, international organisations, industry and relevant geodetic stakeholders.

• Welcoming the vision to see geospatial and location-based information being recognised and accepted as official data for the SDGs and their global indicators, which resonates with its belief in a society empowered by the use of trusted geospatial data.

• Supporting the suggestion for EuroSDR to consider a European-level applied research project on the benefits of implementing FELA that would include online learning resource to support raising awareness and promote implementation. EuroGeographics has a continued and active interest in this topic, in particular through its Knowledge Exchange Network on Cadastre and Land Registration, and is open for possible cooperation and collaboration with the Expert Group and EuroSDR.

• Confirming its continued participation in the Working Group on Policy and Legal Frameworks for Geospatial Information Management as an observer organisation, and noting that its paper on authoritative data co-authored with EuroSDR was used as a basis for initial thinking on what is ‘authority’.

• Welcoming the collaborative progress made by the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names and sharing an update on the Open Regional Gazetteer developed as part of the Open Maps For Europe project, which is co-financed by the Connecting Europe Facility of the European Union. This dataset meets the requirements for geographical names of the Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe and currently includes the geographical names of 36 European countries and ‘dependent territories’ in 39 languages.

EuroGeographics written statements for the 11th Session of UN-GGIM are available here: https://ggim.un.org/meetings/GGIM-committee/11th-Session/documents/