Spatial Data Infrastructure

GPC is renowned for advising and supporting various clients around the world in the establishment, development and rollout of Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) Programs across a federated community of stakeholder entities, typically whole of government at national, sub-national and international organization levels.

The SDI establishes an enabling platform of common fundamental spatial information providing an information infrastructure backbone among the stakeholder community. Such information and related services are fundamental to the nature of operations within and among those stakeholder entities and provide economy of scope and scale towards provision of integrated services. This is achieved in an environment where each type of data is generated and maintained by a responsible custodian and is utilized as a common information resource by others.

Through our extensive experience in long term implementation of NSDI in many countries we have recognized that to have more effective and immediate impact, it is important to go beyond the “supply side” focus of traditional NSDI to also address the “demand side” matters. This includes facilitation and capacity building in supporting the direct application of geospatial data to national sustainable development and capital investment priorities, and in positioning the initiative to directly support the highest levels of policy and decision-making, including for example providing direct support to the achievement of a country’s Strategic Vision and beyond. In addition, we have recognized the need to leverage new and emerging technologies and methods including various “smart” systems, internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence, machine learning, and many that are changing the technology landscape and how we use it. To ensure these dimensions are addressed, the GPC Group has crafted a unique approach to what we have termed “SDI+ – Sustainable Development Infrastructure” that builds on the important foundations of classical NSDI, balances this with attention to ensuring this information is applied effectively to high priority application sectors while also tapping into and leveraging new and emerging technologies.

SDI programs typically build synergy and align with e-government programs and address, among other things, the following:

Policies & agreements
Strategies and implementation plans
Outreach and stakeholders engagement
Organizational design and capacity building for the SDI support service center

Governance and performance management
Standards & procedures
Enabling technology infrastructure and platform
Data management framework
Services chaining and integration

We have supported our clients, over the years, in various types of development and rollout activities of SDI programs such as:

Federated roadmap development with participation of several-dozen stakeholder entities
Foundation technology platform and data clearinghouse implementation
Policies, governance, and program management support
Performance management and ROI studies
Integration with e-government services and sector-based government solutions

Bottom line when it comes to SDI there is no “one size fits all”. Our comprehensive global experience allows us to adapt international best practices, standards and innovations to suit the local context and unique needs of each new situation.