FIG 22nd General Assembly   31 May and 4 June 1999   Sun City, South Africa

Appendix to item 7: President's report

Annex to the President's Report

1.1 From time to time, members question the extent of involvement of FIG in its UN related activities. This paper attempts to put on record the present Bureau’s position in regard to the UN.

1.2 The origins of the present policies can be traced back to the Finnish Bureau and in particular the initiative of the then President, Juha Talvitie. It was he, in particular, who established a relationship with the UN Centre for Human Settlement and invited its then Director, Dr. Ramachandran, to give the keynote address at the Helsinki Congress. The Finnish Bureau also applied for and FIG was granted formal accreditation by ECOSOC (the Economic and Social Council of the UN) as an international non-government organisation.

1.3.The Australian Bureau reviewed the whole policy towards the various UN Agencies and drew up a strategy in which UNCHS and FAO became the prime targets for co-operation and partnership. A relationship with what then was known as DDSMS (the Department for Development Support and Management Services) was also initiated, DDSMS being at that time responsible for UN Regional Cartographic Conferences. This relationship is important because surveying in all its forms has, since the formation of the UN, been subsumed under the title "Cartography" .

1.4 The UK Bureau has sought to develop the policies of its predecessors. Early in its period of administration it established links with other UN agencies and among other initiatives sought to broaden the UN definitions of surveying by commissioning a report which reviewed surveying occupations and activities and the way these are currently represented within the two major UN international classifications. Revision of these classifications is necessary if we are to ensure that surveyors can compete fairly in global markets. At present, opportunities are being missed as a result of misclassification in job specifications.

1.5 In assessing the value of FIG’s UN-related activities, three points need to be made. The first is that the UN is going through a difficult financial period and is also re-engineering itself so as to be more in line with modern management practices. There seems little doubt that some funds could be better used and that management procedures within some parts of the UN do not conform to the high standards that should be expected. As a result, access to funds has been limited and many agencies have had to operate on very restricted budgets.

1.6 The second point is that, partly because of this lack of funds, the UN policy is to develop relationships with NGOs so that through partnerships, the UN may achieve what it can no longer do on its own. This policy of partnership with NGOs is now being adopted in the World Bank.

1.7 The third point is that FIG has all along made it clear that it has only limited financial resources and can only make marginal financial contributions in support of its joint ventures with the UN. What FIG can however do is encourage some of its members to contribute their energy and skills to further the aims of the UN and in so doing enhance the reputation of the profession. Whereas FIG has in some quarters in the past been regarded as being primarily concerned with geodetic surveying, it is now recognised as having unique expertise in the field of land administration. This is manifest in the work that FIG has done with UN ECE, FAO and UNCHS where good contacts have been established with senior officials. FIG is recognised as an organisation that delivers on those things in which it agrees to get involved. It is also seen as offering constructive ideas and leadership all of which help to promote the image of the surveyor.

1.8 Early in the UK Bureau’s period of office, the President and Secretary-General visited New York in order to make contact with UN officials since when the President has twice visited Geneva. The Bureau accepted UNCHS’s invitation to organise and chair the workshop on rural/urban linkages that formed part of the HABITAT II conference held in Istanbul in June 1996; and this in turn led UNCHS to propose that it enter into a memorandum of understanding with FIG that was signed by the President of FIG and the UN Under-Secretary-General responsible for HABITAT in January 1997. The memorandum covers a wide range of land and construction-related issues and is currently being up-dated, for report to the UNCHS Partners meeting in Nairobi in May (at which FIG will be represented) and to extend UNCHS/FIG joint activities into the next century.

1.9 The UN invited and paid attendance costs for Ian Williamson to participate in the 14^th UN Regional Cartographic Conference for Asia and the Pacific in February 1997 in Bangkok and to the 6^th conference for the Americas in June 1997 in New York. He was also invited to two of the pre-HABITAT II regional meetings, one in Jakarta in August 1995 and one in New Delhi in January 1996 (where the President represented FIG). Paul Munro-Faure was funded by UNDP to represent FIG at a post-HABITAT II rural-urban dialogue in Brazil in April 1998 and two senior UN officials accepted FIG’s invitation to participate in the Brighton congress.

1.10 FIG’s UN-related activities have now developed to an extent where the Bureau has decided to appoint Ian Williamson as Director, FIG/UN relation and to support him in his work.

1.11 In spite of the UN’s current pecuniary difficulties, Ian Williamson has secured significant financial support for next October’s UN-FIG Conference on Land Tenure and Cadastral Infrastructures to Support Sustainable Development. Previous Bureaux have received UN financial support to pay for delegates from less developed countries to attend FIG Congresses but because of the current financial difficulties no support was available for Brighton. However, not all benefits are cash benefits: some can be measured in terms of prestige, such as the presence of a high-powered UNCHS delegation at the iKUSASA meeting in South Africa in 1997 and at Brighton the following year. There have also been some important tangible outputs such as the Bogor Declaration, the report of the Harare Round Table (both within the period of the Australian Administration) and the report on Dialogue 6 at the Habitat II Conference.

1.12 The most significant benefit has however been the raising of the profile of surveying on the world stage, showing that surveying is a global activity that is not just about making maps or measurements but is about land and property resource management. Our UN activities have brought a "feel good factor" to many of our member associations, allowing them to recognise that they are part of the international community. Awareness of FIG and hence of surveyors has been enhanced in organisations such as the World Bank. Liaison with the UN has been an effective instrument for promoting the skills of the profession.

Peter Dale
President

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