WB developing unified geospatial data standards

The World Bank (WB) intends to develop a unified standard for all countries in a single geoportal, Mohamed Nada, Senior Urban Specialist at the World Bank, said at the Eastern Europe and Central Asia Regional Group panel discussion at the 13th session of the World Urban Forum (WUF13) in Baku, Report informs.

According to him, the WB is focusing its efforts on scaling up the urban sector in three key areas: the land agenda, the urban agenda, and the risk management agenda.

"Within the land agenda, we are working in several areas. The first is traditional activities related to land management. The second is cadastral projects with financing. We interact with multiple cadastral agencies across the region through a unified cadastral system. The new generation of projects, which have been implemented over the past three to four years, is aimed at creating a national spatial infrastructure-collecting more data and working with spatial data," the WB representative noted.

The senior specialist emphasized that in many countries, spatial data remains fragmented across various agencies, and uniform standards for its processing are lacking.

"We are striving to consolidate this data within a single geoportal and develop common standards. This is one of the key areas of our work. Another priority is developing the practical application of geospatial data in planning and other areas," the World Bank representative added.