The GSDI Association along with partners and participants funds a regular small grants program to support national or sub-national activities that foster partnerships, develop in-country technical capacity, improve data compatibility and access, and increase political support for spatial data infrastructure and earth observations application development.

Activities receiving support may focus on technical or institutional projects, as long as there are concrete outputs and several institutions collaborate on the effort. Priority is given to projects in developing nations and countries with economies in transition.

A total of 85 proposals were received in the 2007 competition. After review by international assessment teams, the GSDI Association is pleased to announce the following 20 recipients:

* Africa — Integration of Metadata in current MadMappers Web Archive
* Americas (regional) — Global Map of the Americas User Application Survey
* Belize Metadata — Promoting the use of Metadata Standards in Belize
* Burkina Faso — Technical Workshop on the Production of Metadata
* Chad — Organization of Spatial Data at the CNAR (TCHAD) & implementation of a Spatial Metadata Base for Researchers
* Egypt — National Spatial Data Infrastructure: Policies, Regulations, and Standards
* Guinea — Metadata for the Management of the Guinea Current Large Marine Ecosystem Region
* Jamaica –Fostering a Culture of Metadata Production
* Kenya — Enhancing Capacity of Mapping Services within the International Livestock Research Institute
* Kenya – – Mau Watershed (Sub-region) Spatial Data Infrastructure
* Kenya — Metadata training for Kenyan government and non-profit cooperators
* Moldova — Geospatial Data Standardization
* Mongolia — Establishing web mapping services and applications
* Nepal — Cadastral Metadata of Nepal
* Niger — Niger National SDI Plan
* Nigeria — Spatial Data Infrastructure Capacity Building fro Nigerian Professionals
* Pakistan – – Environmental Spatial Metadata Archive of Pakistan
* Peru — SDI National Workshop
* South Africa — Training of Data Managers in GIS
* South Africa — Address Standards Workshop

The following grant recipients will receive manpower contributions from URISA’s GISCorp as a part of the GSDI Grant program:

* Kenya — GIS on Indigenous Population & Occupations in Kenya
* Mongolia — Establishing web mapping services and applications (In addition to the  cash grant)
* West Africa — Web-map Services for Vulnerability Monitoring and Food Security in Sub-Sahara Counties

Several of current and past funded projects will be highlighted at the GSDI 10 Conference to be held in Trinidad 25-28 February 2008.

For more details, see http://www.gsdi.org/GSDI10