OceanWise expert contributor: 1st meeting of UN Working Group on Marine Geospatial Information (UN-WGMGI)

As part of our ongoing commitment to be at the forefront of marine geospatial data developments, OceanWise is proud to be an expert contributor to the UN-GGIM Working Group on Marine Geospatial Information (UN-WGMGI). The group met in Busan, South Korea, recently, following related meetings of the Open Geospatial Consortium’s Marine Domain Working Group and the International Hydrographic Organisation’s Marine SDI Working Group, which OceanWise personnel helped establish in 2007.

As a consequence, this, the first meeting of the UN-WGMGI represents an important milestone in improving access to fit-for-purpose marine data, an aim that OceanWise has been promoting for many years. The terms of reference of the newly formed UN-WGMGI is focussed at a policy level, raising awareness of this important topic to support the administration, management and governance of the marine environment which underpins the UN’s Sustainability Development Goals. To deliver this, the working group is encouraging the use of internationally agreed frameworks, systems and standards, to improve the relationships between people and the marine environment, and to support the committee of experts to develop the availability of high quality and reliable regional capacity building initiatives, under the UN-GGIM’s wider mantra of ‘nobody left behind’. The full press article is available here.