Home > GIS@development Middle East > 2006 > January - February

Keeping ahead of times



It is indeed amazing to see the levels of work and discussions that are happening in the Middle East region with respect to Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI). The concept of SDI emerges only when a geospatial community has walked a path long enough to understand issues much broader than a single software license or a single project or application. It is an advanced concept that clearly points at - high awareness and deep maturity of the geospatial community.

SDI inherently involves data sharing, standards, interoperability and networking techniques. It calls for multi-party consensus, not only at the decision-making level, but also at the execution level. Today most of Middle East has embarked upon SDI exercises. Almost every country is trying to put a model in place, has started on data accumulation and eventual standardization and now is in the process of building platforms of metadata. The situation is laudable, with noteworthy progress in countries such as Bahrain, Qatar and UAE. The important question at this juncture is how and when these systems start delivering.

There are some issues to be tackled for smooth delivery. Firstly, the countries need more generic legislation and policies that provide a framework for issues such as access of information, intellectual property, copyright, privacy protection, liability and policies related to data access and exchange. These policies shall simply leverage the noble intentions of the already started SDI initiatives. Secondly, the issues of international standards, rapidly changing technology, and limited budgets also need to be addressed. There is the need for a deliberate policy to encourage decision makers to use more spatial information consciously.

The movement has already started. It is just a matter of taking some fast strides. Let us hope that 2006 brings us closer to realizing this dream…