CAF and ECLAC Sign Agreement to Transfer GEOSUR Program Platform

CAF—development bank of Latin America—and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) signed an Agreement to Transfer the GEOSUR Program platform, which allows the deployment, integration, sharing and exploitation of geographical, social, economic and environmental data generated by multiple sources, to support decision-making and the formulation of public policies for the sustainable development of the countries of the region.

The GEOSUR Program was developed in 2007 by CAF as an effective, decentralized and regional mechanism for the dissemination and application of geospatial data in South America, with the participation of geographical, environmental, planning and infrastructure institutions in the region and the cooperation of the Pan-American Institute of Geography and History (PAIGH), the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and the Inter-American Biodiversity Information Network (IABIN).

The Program developed a regional geographic portal providing access to interactive national maps, a topographic processing service that allows the generation of derived maps and geographic analysis based on the higher-resolution relief map or digital elevation model; an interactive regional mapping service with access to spatial information such as regional maps of feasibility, relief, population centers, hydrography, protected areas and ecosystems, satellite imagery and information on infrastructure projects; as well as a display for the integrated digital maps of Central and South America and access to the documentation of the Latin American metadata profile in its second version.

On the basis of the aforementioned Assignment Agreement, ECLAC will develop a renewed interface, based on modern open source geospatial technologies and with new services that will incorporate, first, geospatial information and data collected and published by the GEOSUR Program throughout its 14 years, along with new resources and emerging national initiatives, which will be made available to the community, institutions and specialized agencies, as a regional public asset, as a portal for Geospatial Data Infrastructure at the continental level.