South Africa, Australia, India, and many other countries are developing or evaluating the feasibility of a national spatial data infrastructure. World regions such as Europe and Asia and the Pacific are also working on regional spatial data infrastructures. What it all comes down to is the sharing of data, one of a country’s most valuable resources. Establishing a spatial data infrastructure (SDI) to make data sharing possible makes sense in the event of a health crisis, environmental issue, or a manmade emergency. Since events such as these do not stay within national boundaries, being able to share data between countries or regions can have an impact on the lives of millions of people.

Standards play a major role in creating an SDI that is interoperable and can share data between systems, formats, and applications. Encouraged by organizations such as GSDI, OGC, and INSPIRE, many technology companies are accepting the challenge to respond to standards and interoperability issues. Politics and the policies guarding data could be the biggest challenges in a democratic solution to meet the need of sharing data between counties or governments. Crisis situations will continue to occur; and with the help of the organizations mentioned previously, the demand for sharing data will continue to influence policy makers to pursue the common goal of an SDI. Perhaps the spatial community’s commitment to enable the sharing of spatial data can be the impetus for a truly democratic SDI for many nations and the world.