Global to Local or Local to Global? Ravi Gupta Editor, GIS@development

Who participates in GSDI? Mostly National Level Mapping Agencies Survey Remote Sensing Environment Agriculture Census ..

National Mapping Agencies Work at 1:50,000 or 1:25,000 scales Not necessarily suitable for local government needs Little institutional linkages between local governments and NMAs Local Governments may not necessarily see mapping as an important need

New Institutions needed? National Mapping Agency State Mapping Agency District Mapping (Agency)? Block Mapping Officer? Village Mapping Officer?

Any other way?

Get ‘them’ converted Corporatisation of Municipalities Ahmedabad, Bangalore Urban Planning initiatives Delhi, Bangalore, Calcutta Utility Management NOIDA, Calcutta, Mumbai, Delhi Externally aided projects Mirzapur, Kanpur E-governance projects Hyderabad, Karnataka (BHOOMI) NGOs Mathura

Get ‘them’ converted Participatory Resource Mapping Kerala Orrissa Faridabad Sindhudurg Any many other similar initiatives

Interesting trends Not directly relying on NMAs Public – private participation (due to lack of staff) Not afraid of trying out new ways of doing things New funding mechanisms New technology

Present Scenario Primary / Secondary Data from National Mapping Agencies Physical Procurement National GIS Programmes Present Scenario Central/ State/ District Government Dissemination / Usability / What next?

Data from National Mapping Agencies Central/State/ District Government Primary / Secondary Data from National Mapping Agencies Physical Procurement National GIS Programmes Internet Central/State/ District Government Local Project Local Project Local Project Local Project

Why go local? Local level planning may be best done by locals themselves Need of facilitators to help the community To get empowered to develop it’s own information base To explore it’s own solutions Long term sustainability of the intervention ensured The ‘usage’ of technology may increase manifold if the community is involved in the database development exercise Maps  Applications  Usage

Local Initiatives Isolated efforts Islands of excellence (or vice-versa) Lack of standard guidelines May face problems in future integration with NSDI NSDI efforts have to outreach to them

Creation of a new community Thinking fresh Thinking new Not afraid to experiment Innovative Bypass the traditional mindset barriers prevalent in the NMAs

Way forward Let them do it on their own No one agency can do all this anyway More than 1,000 towns still to be mapped! Develop standards and guidelines Disseminate them well Encourage ‘them’ to follow these guidelines

What does it mean to the NSDI? Decentralised system of development of NSDI Can be a win-win model Will bring a new flavour of new types of people getting into the mapping business

Local to Global?

Thank you Ravi Gupta Ravi.Gupta@GISdevelopment.net www.GISdevelopment.net