The United Nations Regional Cartographic Conference for the Americas (UNRCC-A) provides a regional forum where government officials, planners, scientists and experts from the Americas and other regions meet to address their common needs, problems and experiences in the field of surveying and mapping, cartography, hydrography, remote sensing, land and geospatial information systems.
The 10th Conference is being held from August 19 to 23, 2013 at the UN headquarters in New York under the theme UN-GGIM and the Americas, addressing global challenges through geospatial information. Specific conference objectives are:
• to receive reports on the work being done to advance geospatial information management and assess the status of the resolutions adopted at the Ninth United Nations Regional Cartographic Conference for the Americas.
• for conference delegates to share experiences, knowledge and best practices on geospatial information management (GIM) at all levels;
• for representatives from Member States to gain greater understanding of the relevance and work of the United Nations Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM) Committee of Experts, GIM issues being addressed in addition to the strategic direction and related program of work;
• to elect and welcome the new members of the governing body for the Americas and
• for Member States and supporting stakeholders to identify existing and new opportunities for increased regional and global collaborations aimed at advancing GIM for sustained economic development of the Americas.
The conference will begin on Monday 19th August, 2013 with an opening session followed by administrative formalities. This will be followed by the delivery of reports on the Resolutions of the 9th UNRCC-A and Permanent Committee for Geospatial Data Infrastructure of the Americas (PC-IDEA). The technical conference begins in the afternoon with an important session on UN-GGIM and the Americas. There will be ten sessions and six topics. The topics per session are:
• Session 1: UN-GGIM and the Americas
• Session 2: Strategy, policy, economic and institutional issues
• Sessions 3 and 4: Spatially Enabling Government
• Sessions 5 and 6: Geospatial data collection, management and dissemination
• Session 7: Best practices and applications
• Sessions 8 and 9: Climate change and disaster risk reduction
• Session 10: Technical Committees of the Conferennce (Parallel Sessions)
The three technical committees of the conference will begin their discussions the afternoon of Wednesday 21st, August and the PC-IDEA meeting will be convened on Thursday afternoon, 22nd August.
Government officials, planners, scientists and experts in the field of surveying and mapping, cartography, hydrography, remote sensing, land and geospatial information systems from the Americas and other regions are invited to participate in the conference, pending their requisite accreditation and approvals.