Sharing

The first impulse when you meet someone poor or suffering whilst you yourself are prosperous is to give bits and pieces, usually in the abstract form of coins or bank notes. At non-individual level, transfer of goods from rich parts of the world to developing areas has for some decades been the task of aid organisations and national governments. As long as these goods concern food and medicines the suffering of many may be relieved (at least for a while) and lives saved. However, when the goods concern machines and instruments it frequently occurs that after a short period of use the commodities are put aside. Main reasons: the underlying technology is not properly understood; lack of a proper maintenance infrastructure, or of the organisational infrastructure needed for the technology to flourish.

It is the latter reason that is today primarily responsible for failed implementation. Thus satellite imagery, GPS receivers, computers and GIS software may arrive in developing countries backed by considerable funding from developed countries only to remain either inappropriately put to use, or not used at all, by the beneficiary. In the meantime – and we need not be too proud of this - companies in developed countries could gain enormously from such aid simply by the goods being delivered and some training provided, no more than that.

Capacity Building
For a long time now it has been understood that there is not much sense in just transferring technology from developed countries to developing countries and providing short-term training. There also needs to be a sound organisational infrastructure in the recipient country, enabling integration of technology with staff knowledge and skills matching the aim of the organisational body.

"When somebody is hungry you should not give them fish, but teach them how to fish." Teaching people how to fish has received the tag capacity building (see the feature by Schilling et al., page 69). Indeed, capacity building has for some years now been the response to the many failures in implementing technology within an environment unprepared for embedding. The aim of capacity building is to create within an organisation a mixture of knowledge, skills and technology optimally adjusted to the tasks it has to accomplish within its broader national remit.

Proposition
It should be well understood that within the framework of capacity building, knowledge and skills concern not only technological aspects but also management. In the Insider’s View columns of recent issues of GIM International you may have read concerns about the disappearing manager with a background in surveying/geomatics who is increasingly being replaced by people trained as professional managers. As Prof. Peter Dale observes in this issue, "Today senior managers are being recruited from outside the geomatics industry because internal candidates lack the necessary skills and experience." What should be done? The solution, according to Dale, should be sought a stage back in the chain of knowledge transfer. And that is at the level of teachers: teaching staff at universities should be allowed to spend time in industry, getting to understand the new culture in which their students will be working. How glad I am with this statement! Why? Because it completely matches my own feelings about how university teachers should stay competent. I wrote about this nearly a decade ago as one of the propositions attached to my PhD thesis: "…in order to teach students proper insight into (economic) business processes, university staff need to take sabbatical leave within industry on a regular basis." During defence of the thesis one examining professor completely demolished this proposition. So I hope you do not mind if I share my excitement with you regarding Prof. Dale’s confirmation of my view back then. When will the time come when university boards allow us to share our vision with them?

Humanitarian Aid
The FIG (International Federation of Surveyors) has always demonstrated great commitment to narrowing the gap between rich and poor countries by helping to solve problems induced by unequal sharing of resources, including geospatial information, amongst the population of the world (see review 'From Pharaohs to Geoinformatics). Indeed, geo-information is essential for delivering humanitarian aid to those who happen to be born in a poor part of the world, or those suffering from the damage caused by environmental, natural or technical disasters (see review Gi4DM: Raising Multidisciplinary Awareness).

Whilst the poor inhabit a substantial part of the world – there will be two billion slum-dwellers on the globe by 2030 - the rich parts of the world worry about the health of their people as wealth results in motorised transport and desk labour leaving the body’s muscles unused. The ensuing effects on health have led to the UK setting a goal of getting 70% of its population active for 30 minutes, five times a week by 2020 (see feature by Sharma, Active Places: The Sport England GIS Portal). Strange world, isn’t it?

Sharing is the keyword.