The meeting was held at the President Hotel, Cape Town, and was opened by the Chairman, Mr Derek Clarke, at 12:30pm, Wednesday 15 March 2000.
The draft resolution presented at the GSDI4 conference will be circulated to steering committee members for comment by 15 April 2000 before being posted to the GSDI web site.
Action: Secretariat to circulate draft resolutions and call for comments from steering committee members.
Continuing the idea of Resolution 3 from the 3rd GSDI conference, a resolution was drafted at this 4th GSDI conference for consideration by the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (UN CSD).
Action: Mr Santiago Borrero-Mutis to coordinate the submission of this resolution to UN CSD.
The GSDI steering committee welcomed the offer by FGDC to contribute resources to the establishment of a permanent GSDI Secretariat.
Action: John Moeller to circulate a detailed proposal and course of action.
Comments on the report "Scoping the business case for SDI development" will be received and reviewed by the taskforce members. The timeframe for receiving these comments is also 15 April 2000. This review will also include comments on aims, objectives and definition of the GSDI.
Action: Peter Holland to coordinate the review of the scoping report.
The following working groups and chairs were confirmed:
Operations - Santiago Borrero-Mutis (Chair), Henry Tom, Jane Patterson (Members)
Technical - Doug Nebert (Chair), co-chair will be sought at next TWG meeting.
Legal and Economic - Bas Kok (Chair), Prof Harlan Onsrud will be invited to participate on this working group.
Communication and Awareness - Peter Holland (Chair); this working group will refocus on outreach and capacity building for the GSDI.
The Chair noted the logistical problems with communication between members of global initiatives such as the GSDI and asked steering committee members for any suggestions on how the work activities could be better facilitated between members. The current agreed method is to maintain good email communications and confer ad-hoc meetings at related SDI events.
Mr. Minoru Akiyama commented that there would be a Global Mapping Forum in Japan, on the 28 - 30 November 2000 which would provide an opportunity for such an ad-hoc GSDI meeting.
Prof Ian Masser stated that EUROGI would continue to have resources to host the GSDI web site until July 2000. It was suggested that after this time, FGDC might be able to host the site.