The United Nations Global Geodetic Centre of Excellence (UN-GGCE) will conduct a webinar for Australasian geospatial professionals on 31 January 2024.

As a part of its ‘Listening World Tour,’ the aim of the online event will be to explain the role of the UN-GGCE and seek feedback from stakeholders across the region.

According to the UN-GGCE, its role is to work with Member States and geodetic organisations to strengthen their collective impact to:

• Enhance investment in the global geodesy supply chain.
• Improve coordination and collaboration amongst Member States and geodetic organisations.
• Share geodetic data and improve standards, on a voluntary basis, to contribute to the global reference frame and regional densifications.
• Provide greater technical assistance, especially for capacity development in geodesy for developing countries.
• Make geodesy and its benefits more visible and understandable to society.

Speaking recently to Spatial Source, Nick Brown, UN-GGCE Head of Office said that the UN-GGCE aims to “use information from the Listening World Tour and other sources to create a consensus-driven Global Geodesy Development Plan”.

“This will outline global and regional user needs and provide guidance on how to address critical operational needs and gaps to assist Member States — particularly those in developing countries — to sustain, enhance, access and use the Global Geodetic Reference Frame,” he said.

Registrations for the webinar, which will be held via Microsoft Teams, are now open.

The event will begin with an introduction to the UN-GGCE vision and its objectives, plus an opening statement from Mr Antonius Bambang Wijanarto, President of the United Nations Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM): Asia-Pacific. This will be followed by an open discussion on topics such as:

• What are the key problems UN-GGIM Asia-Pacific is facing?
• What challenges do these problems lead to?
• How could UN-GGCE assist solving these problems?
• How can UN-GGCE best interact with UN-GGIM Asia-Pacific?
• What would success in collaboration look like one year from now?