Background

The Permanent Committee on GIS Infrastructure for Asia and the Pacific (PCGIAP) was established by the United Nations Regional Cartographic Conference for Asia and the Pacific (UNRCC-AP) at its triennial meeting in Beijing, May 1994.

PCGIAP operates under, and reports to, the UNRCC-AP. Currently, there are 55 member nations of the PCGIAP as defined by the United Nations. The countries span a wide part of the globe from Iran and Armenia in the west to French Polynesia in the east; from the Russian Federation and Japan in the north to New Zealand and Australia in the south.

Membership of PCGIAP comprises directorates of national survey and mapping organisations and equivalent national agencies of the nations from Asia and the Pacific. Each nation nominates a single representative but may invite experts as advisers.

Infrastructure

GIS infrastructure is defined as the:

• Institutional Framework which defines the policy, legislative and administrative arrangement for building, maintaining, accessing and applying standards and fundamental datasets,
• Technical Standards which define the technical characteristics of fundamental datasets,
• Fundamental Datasets which include the geodetic framework, topographic data bases and cadastral data bases, and
• Technological Framework which enables users to identify and access fundamental datasets.

It forms the basis of national or regional land administration, land rights and tenure, resource management and conservation and economic development that support the organization and the analysis of a range of spatial and related information for a wide range of social, economic and environmental purposes.

Aim

To maximise the economic, social and environmental benefits of geographic information in accordance with Agenda 21 by providing a forum for the 55 members nations from the Asia and the Pacific region to cooperate in the development of the Asia-Pacific Spatial Data Infrastructure (APSDI), contribute to the development of the global infrastructure, share experiences and consult on matters of common interest and participate in any other form of activity such as education, training, and technology transfer.

Objectives

• To define the nature of a regional geographic information infrastructure that each country in the region can contribute to in order to meet regional and global mapping and GIS requirements.
• To determine the nature of legislative and administrative procedures and orders appropriate to the acquisition and sharing of spatial data.
• To develop a regional geodetic framework, regional topographic datasets, national cadastral datasets and regional geographical names datasets as the basis for regional GIS activity.
• To document the status of key geographic datasets and key agencies in each member nation, and develop a framework for the exchange of such information.
• To prepare guidelines and strategies to assist member nations for the implementation of cadastral development to meet individual member nation needs.
• To determine the need for research, training and technology and policy exchange in relation to the beneficial impact of geographic information on the social, economic and environmental objectives of member nations of Asia and the Pacific region.
• To explore opportunities for aid funding to support development needs of member nations and for the development of a regional spatial data infrastructure.