The website of the Geospatial Data Infrastructure of the Americas, IDE Américas, has the purpose of serving as a gateway for the discovery and access of a wide and varied collection of geospatial information resources in the region. The logic of IDE Américas is distributed and is based on the connection of nodes at various territorial levels, from the global to the subnational level. IDE Américas is the result of collaborative work, through which various organizations make their information available at the service of decision-making and public policies, as a regional public good.

Access to Americas SDI portal

Background

Under the auspices of the United Nations and its Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the IDE Américas website rescues and makes available, through a renewed interface, the valuable information assets that the GEOSUR Program provided to the regional community since the year 2007 with the support of the CAF and the participation of geographic, environmental, planning and infrastructure institutions of the region and the cooperation of the Pan American Institute of Geography and History (PAIGH), the Geological Survey of the United States of America (USGS ) and the Inter-American Biodiversity Information Network (IABIN).

To give sustainability to IDE Américas, the commitment and collaboration of multiple actors is essential. On the one hand, the countries and their coordination mechanisms that support national geospatial data infrastructures, currently undergoing important strengthening processes based on United Nations guidelines such as the Integrated Geospatial Information Framework (IGIF), the Global Geospatial Statistical Framework (GSGF) and the Strategic Framework on Geospatial Information and Services for Disasters.

And in addition, regional organizations and initiatives that provide guidelines and standards, that strengthen technical capacities in the countries, and that provide information in different formats to enrich the regional ecosystem. Among them, the United Nations Regional Committee for Global Management of the Americas (UN-GGIM Americas), the Pan American Institute of Geography and History (PAIGH), the Geodetic Reference System of the Americas (SIRGAS), and the regional chapter for the Americas of the Earth Observation Group (AMERIGEO). All of them, working collaboratively within the framework of the Joint Action Plan formulated to advance the fulfillment of the objectives of the Aguascalientes Declaration (2020).