The UNGIWG-10 plenary meeting held last October in Bonn, Germany, rendered an overview of 10 years UNGIWG activities, leading to the conceptualization and formulation of a UNSDI. The past year has been dominated by reviewing UNGIWG internal processes, like the functioning of the various Task Groups and identifying focal points for the different UN bodies participating in the UNSDI initiative.
At this point no activities have been undertaken, as concluded at UNGIWG-9, to identify and commit a UN organization willing to host the UNSDI programme Secretariat, in particular the Office of Information and Communication Technology (OICT).
After the UNGIWG-10 meeting the UNGIWG Co-chairs met with ASG Choi Soon-Hong, Chief Information Technology Officer (CITO), who is strongly supporting UNSDI to move forward.
Mr. Suha Ülgen has recently been appointed as Senior Advisor on Spatial Data Infrastructure by the CITO. Mr. Ülgen will work together with the current UNGIWG Co-chairs and secretatriat to prepare in the next 6 months a UNSDI implementation proposal.
The many issues raised during the COP-15 Cimate conference in Copenhagen, strenghten the case for a rapid implementation of an UNSDI.