The Expert Consultation and Meeting is being convened at a critical juncture, five years away from the target of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and following latest decision 14/101 at its fourteenth session from 7-9 August 2024, where the Committee of Experts reiterated the importance of strengthening and enhancing national geospatial information management arrangements, capacity, capability and leadership, and urged for sustained national investments in national geospatial programs, in line the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) resolution 2022/24.

The Expert Consultation and Meeting on Enhancing Geospatial Information Management Arrangements and Accelerating the Implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals together with the Sub-regional Workshop on United Nations Integrated Geospatial Information Framework (UN-IGIF) for Southern Africa, including small islands developing states and land-locked developing countries, aims to sustain the implementation and adoption of the UN-IGIF, contributing to the call for enhancing national geospatial information management capabilities of Member States in Southern Africa, including small island developing states and land-locked developing countries in the region.

The event is directly contributing to the outcomes of the Summit of the Future (September 2024) and its action-oriented “Pact for the Future” and accompanying “Global Digital Compact” that recognizes that digital technologies are dramatically transforming our world and calls for closing all digital divides and accelerate progress across the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).The Global Digital Compact further recognizes the importance of digital public infrastructure, built in accordance with national priorities and needs.

The event also aims to support the implementation of the recent outcome document from the United Nations SIDS4 Conference (April 2024), the "Antigua and Barbuda Agenda for Small Island Developing States (ABAS): A Renewed Declaration for Resilient Prosperity". The ABAS lists concrete priorities and actions across ten thematic areas: building economic resilience; scaling up climate action and support; scaling up biodiversity action; conserving and sustainably using the ocean and its resources; mainstreaming disaster risk reduction; achieving safe and healthy societies; improving data collection, analysis, and use; promoting science, technology, innovation, and digitalization; fostering productive populations; and enhancing partnerships.

In the context of the Global Digital Compact and the ABAS declaration, geospatial information is a critical component of national digital public infrastructure, science and knowledge, and a key enabler for realizing an integrated whole-of-government services approach that contributes to economic growth and resilience, sustainable social development, climate action, environmental sustainability and nationwide prosperity.

The five-day event with the overarching theme ‘Implementing geospatial strategies: challenges and opportunities’ will focus on considering strategic approaches to address national priorities, to understand major challenges, to consider main benefits geospatial information management can bring for their countries, and to determine the necessary near and longer-term solutions. The event will comprise of two parts. A high-level ‘leadership’ segment during the first two days (24-25 March 2025) to set the stage and provide a ‘status report’ of the collective present understandings, achievements, challenges, and opportunities to bridge the ‘digital divide’ and enhance national geospatial information management arrangements for accelerating the SDGs. An interactive segment with workshop will be organized during the next three days (26-28 March 2025) to discuss to country circumstances, perspectives, views, experiences and needs, and to understand key elements of their national efforts and priorities towards enhancing their geospatial information management arrangements, resources, capacities and leadership, and to address their challenges and opportunities. An essential part of the subregional workshop's aim is to connect people with knowledge of the problems related to the needs of Southern Africa, with special attention to SIDS and LLDC for the overall needs and future development of countries in the region.

The workshop was attended by over 30 participants including nine Southern African countries (Burundi, Cameroon, Comoros, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe), together with national agencies and ministries, United Nations entities, regional organizations, academia and international partners.

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