Eurostat hosts 2nd Joint UN-GGIM: Europe - ESS meeting in Luxembourg

Representatives from European National Statistical Institutions (NSIs) and National Mapping and Cadastral Authorities (NMCAs) participated in a Joint Meeting of UN-GGIM: Europe –ESS on 11^th March 2016. Hosted by Eurostat at their offices in Luxembourg, this is the second edition of a meeting which offers the unique opportunity of bringing together European statistical and geospatial experts in the same room to share and exchange their ideas and experiences in order to further the objectives and work of UN-GGIM.

The meeting was chaired by Gunter Schäfer who represents Eurostat on the Executive Committee of UN-GGIM: Europe. Marcel Jortay, Director at Eurostat, gave the opening address, this was followed by a keynote from Bengt Kjellson Chair of the Executive Committee of UN-GGIM: Europe. Further keynotes from Fritz Gebhard on statistical data and the Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) indicators, and from Albrecht Wirthmann on how Big Data can be harnessed were both well received by the participants.

The work on core data and data integration currently being carried out by the regional committee was presented by the two Working Group leads, François Chirié from France and Pier-Giorgio Zaccheddu from Germany. The final presentation of the meeting was given by Olav Eggers from Denmark on the geospatial context of the indicators. This last presentation prepared the background for the afternoon breakout sessions which provided the participats with the opportuity to bring to bear their knowledge of staticts and geospatial information in discussing how geospatial information and other data sources contribute to the indicator framework for the SDGs.

Further information about the meeting can be found here.