The United Nations set up their ‘Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management’ (UN-GGIM) in 2011. Together with OGC and IHO, ISO/TC 211 is recognised as an observer, contributing advice on how open standards can help countries improve their management of geospatial information and use it to address key challenges such as those represented in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. 

UN-GGIM developed an approach to integrate geospatial information in national and regional governance: the Integrated Geospatial Information Framework (IGIF). The SDOs contributed a “Standards Guide” to help countries implement IGIF using open standards. 

UN-GGIM has many sub-groups for regions, functions and themes (such as Asia Pacific and Africa; geodesy, land administration & management; professional bodies and the private sector). Once a year they hold a full meeting. For the last two years, these have been virtual, but in August UN-GGIM once again meets in New York. As the three SDOs we will concentrate on showing where our collaboration benefits the UN aims, running a short event on ‘Bringing Land and Sea together – how standardization helps to implement IGIF in Coastal States’.  

A few of us from ISO/TC 211 will describe our work on Land & Marine Administration and other areas that are of particular relevance to the UN and its agencies and members. It should also be a great opportunity to ‘listen and learn’ what is important to countries and organisations that we don’t always get to hear from.