POLICY BRIEF ON ICT APPLICATIONS

IN THE KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY

ISSUE NO. 6 NOVEMBER 2009

Spatial Data Infrastructures to Support Informed

Decision-making for Inclusive and Sustainable
Development in Asia and the Pacific
Spatially distributed data is an essential information satellite images, including those provided free of
element for inclusive and sustainable development. It charge by some websites, further compelled
enables governments to make informed decisions on governments to consider measures aimed at ensuring
a wide range of social, economic and environmental easy public access to such images while attending to
development activities. Development planning has national security concerns. Such progress provides
been one of the key areas in developing countries. the opportunity for images to be shared among
There is considerable demand for spatial information, relevant government departments and throughout
but the constraining factor has been the absence of society, giving rise to the development of service
an enabling spatial-information policy, guidelines for industries, such as location-based road navigation
metadata management and coordination of spatial services.
data.
It is the responsibility of the Government to develop
For the most past, spatial data are created and NSDI to maintain and provide the most fundamental
provided by government organs to provide information spatial information and services in order to reduce
for a variety of development needs. In addition, the duplication, improve interoperability, ensure national
private sector generates and uses spatial data in security, and stimulate the development of the
infrastructure development and strategic expansion of relevant service industries. A large number of
investments. In order for such data to be shared and developing countries in the region have taken
reused efficiently, they need to be properly managed, concrete steps to develop NSDI. However, in many
which requires an infrastructure of some sort, i.e. countries, spatial information is still in non-
spatial data infrastructure (SDI). This is one of the standardized analogue format, which has hampered
reasons that many countries are developing national the operationalization of NSDI and, consequently, the
spatial data infrastructure (NSDI); it will maximize the support required for more effective planning and
use of spatial information in all key sectors.   development of NSDI. Standard digital databases at
different levels are yet to be created and maintained
Populating SDI - the Key in order to make the sharing of information possible.
Challenges
The most critical gap is the lack of full integration of
Traditionally, spatial information is produced and NSDI with other social and economic infrastructures,
handled by various government entities, with different such as transportation, communication, power, health,
standards and quantities, varying quality and agriculture and education, despite the fact that all
enormous duplication. In very limited ways, the private countries in the region are utilizing spatial information
sector also generates information and adds value. at different levels as a basis for developing these
With advancements in information society, demand physically visible infrastructures. The majority of
for spatial information increased and governments countries have not yet adapted the NSDI framework
started adopting more open data policies. for effective and efficient production, utilization and
Subsequently, the role of the private sector became sharing of spatial information for informed decision-
more apparent. The previous practice of producing making. In the fast-changing world of the information
analogue spatial information using non-standardized society, NSDI bridges several critical gaps and
and incompatible maps gave way to digital spatial facilitates the diversity of spatial information usages
information, which created the technical possibility of by multiple stakeholders in diverse sectors of the
producing and utilizing spatial information in a more development arena. For NSDI to be robust, it also is
cost-efficient way. equally important for the necessary spatial data
infrastructure to be implemented at the local, national,
The availability of commercialized high-resolution and regional levels.

United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific
The Existing Conceptual crime, bridging the digital divide, ensuring food
security, supporting transport, health and
Foundation for SDI communication systems, and facilitating land
ownership.
Spatial data infrastructure is the means to assemble
spatial information that describes the arrangement and The driving force behind the development of NSDI
attributes of features and phenomena on the Earth. derives as much from a country’s economic and
political circumstances as from the resources it
Figure 1. A spatial decision support system devotes to SDI development. For instance, in Japan,
one of the main motivations for building NSDI was
the need to handle earthquake-related emergencies.
In Indonesia and Malaysia, by contrast, one of the
major motivations was the desire to centralize
control over land resources and their utilization.

SDI – Trends  
SDI is continuously evolving to new phases through
new software applications that ensure harmonized
digital spatial data exchange between governments,
businesses and the public. From the production
perspective, therefore, SDI development is a
Source: http://www.anzlic.org.au/infrastructure.html dynamic process.
The infrastructure includes the materials, technology Currently, SDI is focussed on the provision of
and people necessary to acquire, process, store and geospatial information through distributed spatial
distribute such information to meet a wide variety of web services, catalogues, and visualization of
societal and economic needs. However, due to the lack information in the form of web map services (WMS).1
of an SDI framework, policies and coordination, most It has been widely accepted that effective and
the countries are not benefiting as much as they could efficient web service infrastructures –- in other words
from what the technology can offer. For instance, a GeoServer technology –- for geoprocessing2 are
well-established information infrastructure, in particular essential for a number of applications, such as e-
SDI, permits digitally enabled governments to handle government and disaster management.
the consequences of disasters efficiently; in contrast,
developing countries lacking such infrastructure are New features of SDI include “wiki-mapping” through
forced to spend more time collecting and integrating web feature servers, and new output formats, such
relevant information in order to make disaster as Keyhole Markup Language (KML), which make
assessments and organize rescue and relief actions. GeoServer accessible by a wide variety of clients. It
Informed decision making on socio-economic is the GeoServer's strength to make geospatial
development issues can be enhanced through the information accessible anywhere and anytime. For
digitization of critical information sets, the conversion of example, Web-based GIS provide a dynamic way to
existing analogue information into digital form, and the represent disease-related information on maps in
sharing of that information through SDI to provide more real time, enabling health data to be shared with
decision-supporting tools and options/scenarios. better visualization, which assists authorities in
Countries should enact the legislation necessary to responding to disease outbreaks.
make this possible, as the potential scope of digital
spatial data is enormous. It is an important component Ways Forward — Key Policy
of a wide variety of scientific, technical, economic and Elements
social disciplines and applications covering almost all
economic and social development fields, including, but Ways to populate SDI have been gleaned from
not limited to, agriculture, emergency management, experiences in the region. The issues considered
health, natural resource management, education, trade, directly relevant are highlighted below.
transport and social science. In the disaster reduction (a) Availability and easy accessibility
area, SDI maintains the basic information needed for The availability and easy accessibility of spatial
disaster risk assessment, prevention, warning, damage data, unhindered but regulated, requires sound and
estimation, response planning and implementation, and adaptive policies for spatial data sharing. Users need
recovery. SDI is also the platform for some fundamen- the foundation of good, reliable and basic data in
tal information used for alleviating poverty, reducing GIS databases.

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 (b) GIS process standards
applications, maintain systems and render various
Instituting good GIS process standards involves
kinds of services, but all of them will be operating on a
the standardization of the entire process of “spatial
value-based “royalty” model—meaning that they will
technology”, including images, GIS database creation,
receive royalties based on their investment—which
spatial outputs, spatial data quality assessment and
will make each a successful enterprise.
spatial services.
(c) Technical interoperability Investments in the ICT sector, in this case NSDI, often
Technical interoperability involves integration of require public-private partnerships, especially if there
different systems and standards using the services is a need for a greater range of skills. The
oriented architecture (SOA) and based on Web development of robust NSDI requires a variety of
standards (spatial data and application services will resources, in particular financial. Judging from the
be the order of the day for GIS in the future). experiences of countries that have established SDI,
(d) Spatial modelling and applications government tax revenues will not suffice to build and
Another important issue is spatial modelling of maintain robust SDI and bridge the infrastructure gap.
objects and terrain features, which brings new Private sector finance, together with greater
perspectives in the visualization of spatial information diversification of public sector revenue sources,
and new insights to integrated economic and social presents the only viable solution.
development—GIS services will touch and broaden
Obtaining financial support from the private sector is
almost all aspects of society.
not an easy task. Usually, there are a number of
(e) GIS partnerships and enterprises prerequisite conditions, one of which could be the
It is necessary to create GIS partnerships and existence of effective policies. The existing model for
enterprises replete with the infrastructure, mission- financing NSDI from government tax revenue is not
critical capabilities and robust architecture associated desirable because it creates an undue burden on the
with other enterprises. With the emergence of government. For instance, in some countries, 90% of
partnerships between GIS and IT industries, the gap NSDI is financed from taxpayer funds and only 10%
between GIS technology and conventional information through “user-pay” models. The ideal model, on the
technology will eventually disappear, giving way to other hand, is 30% from taxpayer funding and 70%
new possibilities. from “user-pay” models, including donor agency
(f) GIS user communities funding and utility companies, which are major users
GIS user communities need to be established. of the information.3 In some cases two thirds of total
Through proper education and instruction, people will expenditure on SDI is paid by the federal, state and
become knowledgeable about spatial data and will be local governments, and one third by the private
in a position to benefit from spatial technologies. sector.
(g) Spatial and non-spatial databases
A number of studies have quantified the value of
Both spatial and non-spatial databases are key geographic information to national economic
engines of NSDI. A society that has a good, reliable development in order to determine whether the often
and detailed database of its resources, assets, people high costs of creating a SDI can be justified. The fact
and infrastructure is better able to manage, develop is that SDI is part of the more generic National
and protect itself and generate successful commerce. Information Infrastructure (NII), but this is not
What is required in this context is (a) a national effort generally known by the user.
to create a database that provides a first-level
snapshot of the real world – and this may be Table 1 shows a range of typical cost-benefit analysis
comprised of many national perspectives “stitched studies in the region. Some of these studies were
together”; and (b) a national database that provides done for a single industry or government sector or
an in-depth assessment of national disparities and agency.
gaps down to the city level or even a property-level
database of land/property assets. Overall, the Asia-Pacific region has a complex social
(h) Public-private partnerships and political environment characterized by competing
It is not possible for government alone to and often conflicting priorities and motivations. As
found by Rajabifard,4 approximately 30 per cent of
establish NSDI fully. Partnerships will have to be the
Asia-Pacific countries have developed SDI. Some of
core mechanism that will make NSDI successful.
those countries have little to show for their efforts
The boundaries will eventually define themselves:
while others are well advanced. The development of
there will be firms to provide data assets, develop  
SDI is a long-term process that requires a long-term

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 Table 1. Cost-benefit ratios from relevant studies
Date Organization Country Type of Study Cost-Benefit ratio
Economic and social
1992 AUSLIG Australia benefits of public interest 1:3.8
programme
Government of Strategic Framework for
1993 Australia 1:5.5
Victoria GIS development
Australian land and
1995 ANZLIC Australia/New Zealand geographic data benefits 1:4
study
Source: Roger A. Longhorn, and Michael Blackmore, Geographic Information: Value, Pricing, Production and Consumption, Boca
Raton, Florida, United States: CRC Press, 2007.

process that requires a long-term vision and strategy. 3. Establishment of a programme for information
The accelerated development of SDI in Asia and the sharing: The sharing of spatial data generated by
Pacific depends on stronger leadership towards a multiple agencies in government and private domains
“smart” and greener economy, with public investment is fundamental for NSDI. Data-sharing protocols
and policy and regulatory changes enabling much should be established in order to (a) organize national
more substantial and coherent investment by the spatial data from multiple agencies at various levels,
private sector—both companies and individuals. (b) minimize redundant data collection at all levels,
and (c) create new opportunities for the use of spatial
data by all the relevant agencies throughout the
Five areas for action country. Specific funding and budgetary support
should be ensured, and the nodal national agency
Taking into account the best practices, lessons should coordinate the cross-cutting aspects of the
learned and technology trends regarding the programme.
development and operationalization of robust SDI, 4. Formulation of a national policy framework on
policymakers can consider taking action in the areas NSDI development and access: The national policy
listed below. framework should provide a common understanding
1. Establishment of an institutional framework: and a mechanism for the production, access and
For successful development of NSDI, there is a need utilization of spatial information by all. SDI should be
for a national policy that provides the necessary envisaged in such a way as to seamlessly integrate
guidelines and put in place intersectoral committees online databases, data processing, real-time mapping
involving information providers and consumers both in and information collection from variety of sources and
the government and in the private sector. The dissemination technologies. However, recent experience
institutional framework should (a) make it possible for have shown that, although spatial databases are well
outstanding issues to be addressed, (b) permit developed, the data sharing, integration and
seamless access to databases in the compatible dissemination components are still lagging behind in
standards and formats, and (c) engage public-private many countries.
partnerships in order to widen the base of 5. Legal issues related to data sharing: In the
stakeholders. policy framework, legal issues related to ownership,
2. Establishment of a national agency for custodianship, confidentiality, copyright, privacy and
coordination and implementation: Establishing or liability need be balanced with developmental needs,
identifying the nodal agency mandated to develop information democracy and national security
NSDI with the support of all stakeholders is the next concerns. Other matters that could be addressed
step. The nodal agency should be tasked with through appropriate policy mechanisms include data
promoting accessibility to and usability of spatial pricing, funding, data access and data security. All
information and advocating the formulation of these policy elements should be harmonized with
consistent government policies to overcome barriers existing laws in the respective country in support of
wherever possible. The agency would be meant to SDI development and its contribution to inclusive and
work with all government entities and the private sustainable economic and social development.
sector to develop policies and guidelines incorporating
best practices, internationally recommended norms
and, when appropriate, available standards.

This Policy Brief on ICT Applications in the Knowledge Economy has been prepared by the Information and Communications
Technology and Disaster Risk Reduction Division of ESCAP to provide a brief introduction on selected ICT applications, identify
issues for implementation, and provide policy direction for the promotion of the applications. For further information on this Policy
Brief, please contact: Mr. Xuan Zengpei, Chief, Information and Communications Technology and Disaster Risk Reduction Division
(e-mail: [email protected]).
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1
Processing digital spatial data into information in a way that
complies with the standards of the Open Geospatial
Consortium (OGC).
2
Processing of spatial information to produce new
information.
3
Gopal N. Sarma, “Financial strategy for the National Spatial
Data Infrastructure”, a presentation by Feedback Strategic
Consultancy Services (P) Ltd., 12 November 2003
(accessed from http://www.nrdms.gov.in/fin-stra-
feedback.pdf).
4
http://www.gisdevelopment.net/magazine/years/2003/
jul/asiasdi.asp.