3. Overview of the organizations and other sources of information
This section will deal with the second aim described in section 1 which was formulated as:
2. Identify the organizations that are active in the field of researching and executing projects on "GIS in local government in developing countries" as well as other potential sources for evaluation and case studies.
As stated in section 1, it appeared to be very difficult to find useful case studies on the Internet or in directly available literature. The cases that did comply with the condition of this study are listed below and also mentioned in the Access Database in the appendix. The next section will get in to some of the lessons learned out of these cases.
- Belo Horizonte, Brazil
- Cebu, The Philippines
- Lilongwe, Malawi
This section will further deal with the organizations and other sources for evaluation. In the following lists only the names are mentioned. More information can be found in the Access Database.
In order to get a better overview of the different kinds of organizations I have made a distinction between four groups of organizations:
- Development Organizations
- Funding Agencies
- Specialized International Organizations
- Research and Training Institutes
- Associations
- Consultancy Agencies
Besides the organizations, other interesting sources of information are:
- Development Organizations
There is not always a sharp distinction between the category with agencies that are financing projects and the category with organizations that are developing policy for the projects. For that reason the development organizations are separated in 'funding agencies' and 'specialized international organizations'. An organization will be put in the category where its main activities are although it may have some other activities as well.
Development organizations are organization involved through funding or (co) implementing of GIS projects or advising for GIS projects.
The implementation of GIS is hardly ever a main subject in a project or program of a development organization. For example, in the CIDA program, GIS is part of the larger project called 'Local Government Support Project'. The purpose of this project is to enhance local government capacity. Via others it appeared that there is a GIS part in this project, which did not come to light out of the description of the project on Internet. The same goes for the 'Sustainable Cities Program' of the UNCHS (/Habitat). Often the project descriptions on Internet are so limited that it is not stated clearly what role GIS plays in it. This problem has to be noticed here as it can mean that this overview is not complete. It also fills the thought that the restriction of searching the Internet is a problem here.
- Funding Agencies
- ADB: Asian Development Bank
- CIDA: Canadian International Development Agency
- GTZ: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit
- IADB: Inter-American Development Bank
- SIDA: Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency
- USAID: The United States Agency for International Development
- World Bank
- Specialized International Organizations
- ESCAP (UN): Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific
- CDE: Centre for Development and Environment
- IDRC: International Development Research Council
- Swedesurvey
- UNEP/ GRID: Global Resource Information Database
- UNCHS (Habitat): United Nations Centre For Human Settlements
- Research and Training Institutes
Research Groups can be a group of individual scientist or scientist joining a department at a university or other educational institution. Their aim is to study and share information on a certain subject.
- ACASIAN: Australian Centre for Asian Spatial Information and Analysis Network
- AIT: Asian Institute for Technology
- ICIMOD: International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development
- ITC: International Institute for Aerospace Survey and Earth Sciences
- NCGIA: National Center for Geographic Information & Analysis
- UNU-INTECH: United Nations University
- Institute for new technologies
- Associations
Associations are groups of professionals and/or researchers with an interest in GIS, LGUs and/or developing countries. A distinction is made between associations that focus on developed and developing countries.
Developed countries
- AGI: Association for Geographic Information:
- CEDARE: Centre for Environment and Development for the Arab Region and Europe.
- ICLEI: The International Council for Local Environment Initiatives
- ICMA: International City/County Management Association (V.S.)
- UCGIS: University Consortium for Geographic Information Science:
- URISA: Urban and Regional Information Systems Analysis
Developing countries
- ACPGIS: The Association of Chinese Professionals in GIS
- CDSI: City Development Strategies Initiatives
- CSDMS: Centre for Spatial Database Management & Solutions (South Asia)
- GISDECO: GIS DEveloping COuntries
- GISTDA: Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (Thailand)
- GSI: Geographic Survey Institute
- IAPAD: Integrated Approaches to Participatory Development
- IATFGI: Inter Agency Task Force on Geographic Information
- ICMA: International City/County Management Association:
- IULA: International Union Local Authorities (also developed countries)
- IFIP: The International Federation of Information Processing
- NAMRIA: National Mapping And Resource Information Authority (Philippines)
- PCGIAP: Permanent Committee on GIS Infrastructure for Asia & The Pacific
- PIDS: Philippine Institute for Development Studies
- Consultancy Agencies
- DHV
- Geoplan
- PADCO Planning and Development Collaborative International Incorporated Company
- Prodabel
- WEBEL: The West Bengal Government's IT Company
- Web resources
Besides these organizations there is also information about this subject in the form of 'web resources'. These are forums or electronic journals that are only accessible via Internet.
- Digital Governance
- Eldis
- Electronic Journal on Information Systems in Developing Countries (EJISDC)
- Euforic
- GIS Center's eGroup
- GISdevelopment
- GISNet Malaysia
- Gisworld
- I-connect online
- InfoDev
- Panasia
- Journals
Below some journal are listed where evaluation and case studies are likely to be published.
- Environment and Planning B, Planning and Design
- GIM International
- GIS Link (Newsletter); Newsletter of the Technical Working Groups of the IATFGI
- International Journal Geographic Information Systems/Science- vol. until 1996 (after that they became more technical) (Special Edition for Developing Countries in 1991)
- Regional Development Dialogue (published by UNCRD)
- Transactions in GIS