Title: Geospatial Science and Technology Briefing on work carried out by the CSTD
1Geospatial Science and TechnologyBriefing on
work carried out by the CSTD
UNITED NATIONS COMMISSION ON SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY FOR DEVELOPMENT
- Dong Wu
- UNCTAD
- 17 December 2013
2Commission on Science and Technology for
Development (CSTD)
- Functional commission of the Economic and Social
Council (ECOSOC) - Created in 1992 to provide advice to ECOSOC and
the GA - Since 2006, CSTD has been mandated to assist
ECOSOC in the follow-up to WSIS - The Secretariat is UNCTAD
3Commission on Science and Technology for
Development (CSTD)
- Identify priority themes during the annual
sessions - Make recommendations to ECOSOC
- Once adopted, these recommendations become
ECOSOC resolutions. - These recommendations are for consideration by
national governments, and UN entities, including
those at the regional level.
4Commission on Science and Technology for
Development (CSTD)
- 15th session, May 2012
- Open access, virtual science libraries,
geospatial analysis and other complementary ICT
and STEM assets to address development issues,
with particular attention to education
5Geospatial Science and Technologywork of the CSTD
- Geospatial Science and Technology for
Development UNCTAD Current Studies Series - Report of the Secretary-General on Open access,
virtual science libraries, geospatial analysis
and other complementary ICT and STEM assets to
address development issues, with particular
attention to education
6Geospatial Science and Technology
- Tools and methodologies that are used to collect,
manage and analyze geospatial data. - Significant transformation in recent years due to
new technologies such as GIS, remote sensing and
GPS
7Societal benefit areas and related decision
support systems
8Geospatial Science and Technology for Development
- Applications that can address development
challenges - Urban development
- Land administration
- Disaster management
9Summary of GST-enabled benefits in sustainable
urbanregional development
10Example of use of GIS in urban-regional planning
Visual Interpretations of different housing
typologies in selected wards of Delhi to refine
poverty targeting
Source Baud, Kuffer, Pfeffer, Sliuzas (2010)
11Example Rates of unemployment in Rosario
Argentina 2001 Census
Source Martínez, J. (2009)
12GST-enabled benefits in land administration
13Example of use of GIS in land management
Trialling HRSI for boundary identification in
Ethiopia- World Bank Study Geospatial land
parcel mapping is not common yet in Ethiopia.
Land titling is limited to textual
certificates. A WB project used Quickbird
satellite imagery to establish a parcel index for
a region.
Source Lemmen and Zevenbergen (2010)
14Main contributions of GIS to disaster management
15How can developing countries better utilize these
geospatial science and technology
- Multi-level approach
- Global strategy and vision
- National strategy
- Infrastructure and data
- Participatory GIS and crowdsourcing
- Cost
- Capacity-building
16Report of the Secretary-General
- GIS and Education
- Learning about GIS and learning through GIS
17Learning about GIS and learning through IGS
- Learning about GIS
- Necessity for educational programmes that train
people to become GIS practitioners (GIS-literate
force) - Learning through GIS
- As an education tool to develop spatial abilities
(mainly spatial orientation and spatial
visualization) - GIS and geospatial analysis can also help in
developing data analysis and manipulation skills
18Recommendations made by the CSTD to the ECOSOC in
relation to GIS
- Strengthen secondary and post-secondary curricula
to better integrate geographic information
systems and fundamental concepts of geography
that enrich spatial thinking into national
education programmes and support teachers through
training to better integrate such systems,
geography and spatial thinking into their
professional development - Establish bodies dedicated to obtaining, storing
and disseminating geographic data, including
remote sensing data, to make geographic
information system data available for public use
at the lowest cost - Involve the private sector in the process of
increasing technology openness for geospatial
data, with, for example, public sector
organizations such as government agencies and
libraries collaborating with private sector firms
to index geospatial information and make it
easily searchable and available online - ECOSOC included these recommendations in its
Resolution 2012/6 of 30 August 2012
19Thank you.