Second High Level Forum on Global Geospatial Information Management
Article

Second High Level Forum on Global Geospatial Information Management

Doha Declares its Intentions

As the end product of the Second High Level Forum on Global Geospatial Information Management, the Doha Declaration affirms the importance of having a stable, credible and reliable national geospatial information infrastructure in each country built on internationally recognised standards, integrating, managing and delivering geospatial information for timely, evidence-based and authoritative decision-making and policy formulation on location-based development issues, including disasters and humanitarian needs.

During the Second High Level Forum on Global Geospatial Information Management held in Doha, Qatar, from 4 to 6 February 2013, policymakers, ministers and other delegates from 60 Member States along with representatives of industry professional societies gathered in the Qatar National Convention Centre to exchange and discuss further implementation of geospatial information in governments’ decision-making. By the end of the summit, the Doha Declaration also contained statements on their commitment to working together as an international community under the co-ordination of the United Nations to improve a sustained, operational, global geodetic reference frame and to support increased demand for positioning and monitoring applications with associated societal and economic benefits. Furthermore, the Forum affirmed the importance of an agreed set of authoritative core global geospatial reference datasets that are needed to support global sustainable development activities and to work jointly towards the preparation, improvement and maintenance of these core datasets.

The Forum in Qatar was opened on Monday 4 February by Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim Jabr Al-Thani, Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Qatar together with Vanessa Lawrence, co-chair of the UN Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management, professor William Cartwright, president of the Joint Board of Geospatial Information Societies, and Wu Hongbo, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs.


Exchange Forum

The Forum was preceded by an Exchange Forum, attended by members of the private sector, research and development institutes and government representatives. In the Exchange Forum, the participants committed to continually exchange ideas and practices with the wider community to advance the objectives of the United Nations Initiative on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM). Professor Orhan Altan, member of GIM International’s Editorial Advisory Board, will provide a report on the Exchange Forum in next month’s issue of GIM International.

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