Report on UN, FIG, PC IDEA Special Forum held at INEGI,
Mexico
Aguascalienties, Mexico, October 26 & 27, 2004
This report in Spanish
 As
a result of a resolution at the Seventh United Nations Regional Cartographic
Conference for the Americas held in January 2001 in New York, a Special
Forum was hosted by the Government of Mexico through INEGI at their
headquarters in Aguascalienties on 26 and 27 October 2004 with a theme of “The
Development of Land Information Policies in the Americas”.
The objective of the forum was “to establish an awareness of the economic
and social value for decision makers, of the importance of developing land
policies that effectively and efficiently incorporate appropriate spatial
data infrastructures, including an understanding of the value of integrating
the land administration/cadastre/land registration function with the
topographic mapping function.
The United Nations issued invitations to Ministers of Government who have
responsibility for the above functions, or their senior managers who have a
policy responsibility, to attend. Funding support for the forum was received
from the Government of Canada through Natural Resources Canada, Government
of USA through USGS/FGDC and USAID, World Bank and the Danish Trust Fund,
and PAIGH. Facilities and resources were provided by INEGI, and the United
Nations contributed administrative support. FIG was tasked with taking the
lead role in planning and arranging the Special Forum and contributed a
significant amount of time to it.
The program over two days consisted of four keynote papers and seven case
study papers followed by a number of discussions sessions, and a session of
short presentations and discussions on the challenges facing the Americas
with respect to the theme of this forum. There were 116 registrants from 18
countries together with representatives from the United Nations, FIG, PC
IDEA, World Bank and PAIGH. A representative of President Fox of
Mexico – Dr Luis Manuel Gutierrez Levy, Senior Officer, Ministry of
Finance opened the Special Forum.
Following the presentation of papers there was very active discussion on
a range of issues including education, capacity building, institutional
structures, funding, and spatial data infrastructures.
The outcome of the Special Forum will be a “Aguascalienties Statement”,
which will form part of the final report to be tabled at the next UNRCCA to
be held in June 2005 in New York.
Papers and presentations can be viewed at
here
Picture Gallery
Prof. John Parker
12 November 2004 |
