Oct 16, 2014 -- In August at the Fourth Session of the United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM), the Committee called for the adoption of common standards so that geospatial data can be seamlessly shared and used around the world. The Committee recognized the important work done by three international standards development organisations: the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), Technical Committee 211 of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO/TC 211) and the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO).

At an earlier request of the Committee, the three standards organizations co-wrote the Guide to the Role of Standards in Geospatial Information Management. This document provides guidelines for the adoption of common standards. An additional paper was tabled at this session, Companion Document on Standards Recommendations by Tier. This paper, co-authored by Ordnance Survey from the UK perspective and INEGI from the Mexican perspective, describes how a national mapping authority can benefit from the adoption of international standards. These documents can be found at http://ggim.un.org.

Robert Ward, President, International Hydrographic Organization, explained, “Stakeholders in all sectors of society and the economy benefit when industry, governments, organisations and institutions work together to develop, maintain and use agreed to international standards. The world needs geospatial information to be a trusted and accessible resource, and standards are essential to accomplish this.”

A video of the Fourth Session of the United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM) is available on UN Web TV website at: http://webtv.un.org.

The OGC® is an international geospatial standards consortium of more than 495 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available standards. OGC standards support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org/.

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