GSDI Small Grants Program: Accomplishments of the Past

Use of GIS and SDI in promoting coffee quality in Maraba Sector South Province of Rwanda.

The Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI) Association Small Grants Program has supported numerous international geospatial efforts in the past decade. The support the programme has provided to the GSDI member organisations has resulted in meeting programme goals to foster partnerships, develop in-country technical capacity, improve data compatibility and access, and increase political support for spatial data infrastructures (SDIs).

The GSDI Association, the U.S. Federal Geographic Data Committee, and the GISCorps of URISA are partners in this programme. Three types of award can be utilised: (1) cash award up to USD2,500; (2) SDI/GIS consulting services up to the value of USD2,500; or (3) a combination of cash award and SDI/GIS consulting services. The consulting services are offered through the GISCorps [www.giscorps.org].

The past year has seen completion of all but two of the 17 projects awarded in 2012 as well as two projects from the 2011 award year. The results of the projects represent the success of the programme in increasing the knowledge and deployment of SDIs throughout the international community. Highlights of the GSDI Small Grants Program include:

• Hosting numerous workshops to provide training on concepts, exchange ideas and build relationships for future SDI work in Colombia, Indonesia, Macedonia, Rwanda, South Africa, Uzbekistan and Zimbabwe

• Geospatial metadata training, outreach and generation in Ecuador, Ethiopia and Nigeria

• Activation of a geospatial portal in Ethiopia [hoarec.org/index.php/geoportal-home]

• Expansion of Rwanda’s GeoPortal [www.cgis.nur.ac.rw/geonetwork/srv/en/main.home]

• Initialisation of a geospatial portal for Zimbabwe

• Hosting of a tri-country (El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua) meeting that resulted in the creation of a steering committee to guide actions needed to complete Gulf of Fonseca Hydrographic Survey and Nautical Charting

• Translation of the ‘SDI Cookbook’ into Albanian

• Establish an encoding standard for Multilingual (four languages) Place Name Database in China

• Improvement of a policy and strategy for the realisation of SDI for Tajikistan

Additional information and links to final project reports are available at [www.gsdi.org/sic1]. The GSDI’s Societal Impacts Committee [www.gsdi.org/standingcomm?project_id=305] oversees the programme which is chaired by Dr Carmelle J. Terborgh.

Gita Urban-Mathieux is FGDC Grants Coordinator for the Federal Geographic Data Committee within the US Geological Survey and a member of the Societal Impacts Committee of the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Association. She is also the contact for the GSDI Small Grants Program [burbanma@fgdc.gov].