UNSDI HUCO Statement for UNGIWG Sec

UNSDI-Hungarian Coordination Office (HUCO)

The HUCO was established as a virtual office in September 2006 by the common willingness of the participating major stakeholders as HUCO Steering Committee representing mainly governmental agencies, academia and NGOs interested in the provision and use of spatial data. HUCO-related operative tasks were assigned to the Secretary General of the Hungarian Association for Geo-information (HUNAGI). This spatial data interest community has legal entity, exists as independent National GI Association which was established in 1994. HUCO related activities are supervised and coordinated by the HUCO Steering Committee.
HUCO has direct links to the primary bodies responsible for the adoption and implementation of the EC-INSPIRE Directive (namely the Ministry of Environment and Water as well as the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development including FÖMI, the Institute of Geodesy, Cartography and Remote Sensing).
Via HUNAGI, HUCO is involved in the policy shaping and legislative preparation of the amendments generated by the EU directives having impacts on the laws on Surveying and mapping activities, Law on Environment and the Law on Information freedom.
Primary partners of HUCO are the institutions and organisations represented by members of the Steering Committee (www.unsdi.hu).
Main activities of the HUCO are presently:

•awareness raising on UNSDI developments in general, goals, objectives and benefits in domestic and international fora including GSDI, Digital Earth, GEO, CEO WGISS and IYPE;
• informing primary and potential national partners on UNGIWG-UNSDI activities and plans and encourage their involvements in UNSDI developments;
• national UNSDI policy development support;
• informing the global UNSDI community on relevant Hungarian developments through a newsblog and related e-Newsletter both in English language;
• acquisition of funding for UNGIWG’s UNSDI Deliverables developments;
• operation and maintenance of the national UNSDI portal (www.unsdi.hu) and an interactive newsblog devoted to two-way information dissemination related to SDI on local, national, regional and global level jointly with HUNAGI

2008 onward: http://hunagi56.blogspot.com

2006-2007: http://hunagi.blogspot.com .

•consultancy and advisory role to supporting national users to access and use of spatial data provided by the global UNSDI community;
• supporting national partners in disclosing spatial data for use by the global UNSDI community;
• coordination of technical issues such as the possible collaboration in technical development;
• coordination of capacity building activities, arranging Open Days and discussion fora with delegations from abroad