UN-GGIM

The United Nations Regional Cartographic Conference for Asia and the Pacific (UNRCC-AP) provides a regional forum where government officials, planners, scientists and experts from Asia & the Pacific and other regions meet to address their common needs, problems and experiences in the field of geospatial information, including surveying and mapping, cartography, hydrography, remote sensing, land and geospatial information systems.

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The theme of the eighteenth conference is “Spatial Enablement and the Response to Climate Change and the Millennium Development Goals”. In February 1948, the Economic and Social Council recommended that Governments of Member States stimulate surveying and mapping of their national territories and that the Secretary-General of the United Nations take appropriate action to further such efforts. A Committee of Experts on Cartography was appointed by the Secretary General to study the problem and advise upon the means of its implementation. The first meeting of the committee of experts on cartography was held in 1955.

The current Conference would bring together specialists from Asia and the Pacific and other parts of the world, and provide an opportunity to review and assess how well geographic information can be used in dealing with critical issues such as spatial enablement and responses to climate change. It would also give an opportunity to identify the impediments and barriers that still exist, with a view to suggesting appropriate solutions in order to overcome them.

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UNSD, in collaboration with the UN Cartographic Section, organized the First Preparatory Meeting of the Proposed United Nations Committee on Global Geographic Information Management. The purpose of the meeting was to discus how to better coordinate the various regional and global activities on geospatial information and the related management issues and to reflect upon what the challenges at the global level are, and how they should be met, in particular with reference to the development and management of national, regional and global geospatial information to support decision-making in an increasingly complex world.

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The Seventeenth United Nations Regional Cartographic Conference for Asia and the Pacific will be organized by the Statistics Division in Bangkok at the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), from 18 to 22 September 2006. This conference, convened every three years, provides a regional forum where approximately 200 participants (mostly heads of Mapping Agencies and Land Surveys and experts from Asia and the Pacific and other regions, as well as representatives from International and Specialized Organizations) meet to address the common needs, problems and experiences in the field of surveying and mapping, cartography, remote sensing, land and geographical information systems, including spatial data infrastructure institutional, economic and capacity building issues.

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