The meeting was held at the President Hotel, Cape Town, and was opened by the Chairman, Mr Peter Holland, at 10:00am, Monday 13 March 2000.
Those present were:
Present
Mr Peter Holland, Australia - Chair
Mr Derek Clarke, South Africa - Vice Chair
Mr Klaus Barwinski, Germany
Mr Jarmo Ratia, Finland
Mr Anton Wolfkamp, EUROGI
Prof Ian Masser, EUROGI
Dr Bob O'Neil, Canada
Mr Dave McKellar, Canada
Mr Henry Tom, ISO TC 211
Mr John Moeller, USA
Mr Mark Reichardt, USA
Mr Minoru Akiyama, Japan
Mr François Salgé, France
Mr Dave Sharman, UK
Mr Dave Cowen, USA
Mr Eric Anderson, USA
Ms Karen Kline, USA
Dr John Kelmelis, USA
Dr Walt Senus, USA
Mr Santiago Borrero-Mutis, Colombia
Mr Doug Nebert, USA
Prof Milan Konecny, Czech Republic
Ms Karen Siderelis, USA
Dr Tim Foresman, USA
Mr Liping Di, USA
Mr Qian Wang, China
Mr Chunfeng Wang, China
Secreteriat
Mr David Robertson, Australia - Executive Officer
Mr James Kangethe, South Africa
Apologies
Prof Jack Estes (represented by Ms Karen Kline)
Dr Thomas Usselman (represented by Mr Dave Cowan)
Ms Jane Smith Patterson
Mr Dave Coleman
Mr Bas Kok
The agenda was adopted by the meeting and is shown at Attachment 1.
Mr Derek Clarke, vice-chair and host of the 4th GSDI conference, welcomed the steering committee members and observers to Cape Town and wished them an enjoyable and interesting next few days. Mr Clarke noted that they had received almost 200 registrations which was far above the original estimates. Unfortunately, the Minister for Agriculture and Land Affairs, Mrs Thoko Didiza was unavailable to open the conference plenary sessions.
A status report of actions from the previous meeting was circulated with the agenda papers. The executive officer highlighted some of these actions.
Action Item 1. The executive officer noted that much promotional material, including the publicity brochures, had been produced for the GSDI over the past year, however, it was all in English. The previous meeting had discussed the possibility (and importance) of producing this material in a number of languages, but this idea has not yet been pursued.
Action Item 3. The executive officer reported that the steering committee membership which had been constructed immediately prior to the GSDI3 conference had been maintained throughout the last term. However, it was evident that several individuals on the current list have been inactive with regard to the GSDI initiative. As well, the function and role of the Advisory Committee had never been well defined.
Action Item 4. The previous meeting had noted the importance of engaging and building strong relationships with both industry and more particularly funding agencies such as the World Bank. The executive officer suggested that this might be a focus of the GSDI in the next term.
Action Item 6. Although the statement in Resolution 3 from the 3rd GSDI conference had been submitted to the United Nations Statistical Division, it has not proceeded beyond this step. The executive officer noted this item in the context of how the GSDI steering committee might pursue future lobbying of the United Nations, with particular reference to the UN Commission on Sustainable Development.
The meeting noted that it was important to have executive support to follow through on these actions and move the GSDI initiative forward. The chairman agreed with this point and suggested that it was an important issue for discussion over the next few days.
The Chair welcomed steering committee members and observers to Cape Town and thanked Mr Clarke and his team of conference organisers for their efforts at arranging this 4th GSDI conference. The Chair highlighted the fact that this was the first time a GSDI conference had been held on a continent comprising mainly developing nations and noted that the conference theme "Engaging Emerging Economies" had been chosen to reflect this important fact. As well, this conference is designed to engage many people who have not yet had an opportunity to join in the global GSDI debate.
The Chair reviewed the activities of the GSDI steering committee over the past term and signalled that progress had been made against most of these activities which emanate from the resolutions and recommendations made at the 3rd GSDI conference in Canberra, Australia, in November 1998.
Finally, the Chair encouraged steering committee members to use the 4th GSDI conference to:
whilst noting that the agreed work activities of the GSDI must be both well focused and achievable.
Mr Nebert tabled a draft copy of the SDI implementation guide (or "Cookbook") which is being released for review at this 4th GSDI conference. The Cookbook is intended to provide geographic information providers and users with the necessary background information to evaluate and implement existing components of SDI. It is also hoped that the Cookbook will facilitate participation within the growing GSDI community. It is expected that the public release of the Cookbook will be available on the GSDI web site by early May 2000.
The Chair commented on the Cookbook as an outstanding piece of work and thanked Mr Nebert and all those who had contributed to the project for their efforts. The meeting agreed with these comments and noted that the Cookbook was a tangible output which supports the case for a continuing GSDI effort.
Mr Salgé suggested that it may be useful to compare the recommendations made in the Cookbook to the reality of current SDI implementation (possibly in Europe). The Chair commented that the global NSDI survey being conducted by Prof Harlan Onsrud might be a vehicle for doing this.
Ms Siderelis referred the meeting to work done and presented at GSDI3 on the question of an organisational framework for the GSDI as well as an issues paper which was circulated prior to the last steering committee meeting at Cambridge. Although some comments had been received and discussed at Cambridge there was still a need for much further discussion. Ms Siderelis also suggested that there may be an issue of "function following form" which needs to be addressed by the steering committee.
The Chair noted the problems encountered by this working group and commented that the working group was tasked with a difficult objective given that the steering committee has not yet clearly defined the aims, objectives and desired outcomes for the GSDI initiative.
Mr Robertson tabled a status report on the activities and outcomes of this working group and highlighted the main achievements which included;
With respect to a future workplan, Mr Robertson suggested that many of these activities could be adequately performed by the secretariat and that the working group could be refocussed to target outreach and capacity building issues for the GSDI.
Prof Masser reported that the work activities of this working group had only commenced at the time of the previous steering committee meeting in Cambridge in July 1999. Since then a terms of reference has been developed for the working group which includes a proposal to send out a questionnaire to obtain more detailed information about the legal and economic aspects of national and regional SDI's.
The Chair commented that the legal and economic issues were probably not currently identified as a priority within the GSDI community, but would be important in the future.
Mr Salgé noted that policies are changing very quickly with respect to these legal and economic issues and that any survey of these issues should consider this point so as to avoid producing dated results from the questionnaire.
Mr Barwinski also commented that a better definition of the GSDI would probably assist this working group focus on its work activities and produce meaningful outcomes for the GSDI.
The Chair tabled the report titled "Scoping the Business Case for SDI Development" which was prepared for the GSDI steering committee by the Centre for International Economics, Canberra, Australia. The Chair commented on the report as outlined in Attachment 2.
The meeting thanked those members who collaborated on the production of this report and agreed that there was clearly much more work required to increase awareness of the importance of SDI development.
Mr Salgé made the following points:
In response to the first point, some participants in the meeting believed that the "G" was important in GSDI to ensure a focus on global needs and not just those at the national or regional level.
Mr Moeller stated that he was against proceeding with a full Business Case Study at present. Rather, he would prefer to concentrate on case study analysis (eg Hurricane Mitch) and look at the outcomes in terms of the GSDI.
Mr Reichardt commented that the GSDI initiative must address the use of geographic information for decision and policy making and not just as an framework for the use of GIS.
The chair encouraged all participants at the meeting to comment on the future direction of the GSDI. A brief summary of these comments is at Attachment 3.
During this discussion, Mr Moellor offered to contribute FGDC resources to the establishment of a permanent GSDI Secretariat. The meeting agreed to accept this offer and looked forward to receiving further details about this proposal from Mr Moellor in the near future.
The following steering committee meetings were agreed:
A meeting to draft conference resolutions: 16:00-17:00 Tues 14
A meeting to confirm the future work activities of the GSDI steering committee: 12:30-13:00 Wed 15
The meeting was closed at 12:20 pm.