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Institutional Networking for a Regional Sdi in the Hindu-kush Himalayas

The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) has been working towards developing a Regional Spatial Data Infrastructure (RSDI) in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan (HKH) region to attain the common goals of an accurate geo-information base to address the various issues related to sustaining mountain ecosystems. The present activities in this endeavour, challenges and the approaches for way forward are discussed in this paper. Climate change, water and poverty are the three strategic thrust areas of ICIMOD with its activities focusing on addressing the needs to investigate, to develop adaptation mechanisms and to prepare the communities and nations of the HKH to successfully manage the changes that are taking place. Many of these issues are of transboundary concern and an improved understanding of key components of these issues is necessary to effectively address them. Geographic information has been a common denominator for studies in many areas of concern. However, when it comes to basic data and information, the HKH region is still very poor. There have been initiatives at the global level for generating core geographic datasets which are required for multiple applications. Keeping in view that the global datasets lack the required details to define the mountain geography and ecosystems of the HKH and the national datasets are fragmented and poorly maintained, there is a strong need to develop datasets that are useful for regional applications. ICIMOD has been working on promoting regional cooperation through interdisciplinary and cross sectoral partnerships. In this respect, ICIMOD’s approach towards the RSDI is to develop basic data layers at regional scale and a common framework for sharing data and knowledgebase. Partnerships and networking among the national and regional institutions and their capacity building have been the major strategies for the development of RSDI. The long term goal of having a RSDI is to develop networks of institutions linked by intra-regional institutional framework that provides mechanisms for sharing experience, technology transfer and coordination in development and use of fundamental datasets of the region.