With the goal of closing the digital divide in land management, CARIGEO initiative launched a series of four webinars in 2021, crucial for the future of the Caribbean. The first session in this series not only celebrated the launch and implementation of the Caribbean Geoportal, but also solidified a community of practice dedicated to open data sharing. Through these sessions, the technical foundations were laid that now allow the region to address critical challenges such as climate change and natural disaster management with better tools.

The Fourth webinar on the Caribbean Geoportal: Good decisions need good data: a look at best practice in data sharing was the concluding session of the 2021 CARIGEO webinar series, held on September 21, 2021.

Objective: To provide Caribbean geospatial and statistical organizations with the technical knowledge and governance frameworks required to publish, manage, and share authoritative data.

• Key Focus: Moving beyond simple data collection to ensuring data is interoperable, accessible, and high-quality to support effective regional decision-making.
• Target Audience: GIS managers, data custodians, and national mapping agency representatives. 

Key Discussion Points:

• Data governance and quality: Emphasis on establishing metadata standards and quality assurance protocols so that regional partners can trust the data available on the Caribbean GeoPortal.
• Sharing mechanisms: Detailed look at the "how-to" of data sharing, including:
  • Publishing web services and open data.
  • Using the portal to host authoritative national layers.
  • Implementing the UN-IGIF (Integrated Geospatial Information Framework) principles for data management.
• Ecmpowering local Communities: Demonstrating how small island developing states (SIDS) can leverage cloud-based infrastructure to maintain their own spatial data infrastructures (SDI) without expensive local hardware.

Concept Note

Presentations