FIG Foundation - Building a Sustainable Future

Report from Eva Maria Unger

In the role of FIG Young Surveyors Network chair - elect, Eva Maria Unger was funded to attend -

  • FIG Pacific Small Island Developing States Symposium, Suva, Fiji Island
  • STDM – An Introduction to a pro-poor land information system, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  • LADM2013 Workshop, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  • CLGE General Assembly, Chisinau, Moldova
  • 1st FIG Young Surveyors European Meeting, Lisbon, Portugal
“First of all I want to say a big Thank you to the board of the FIG Foundation. It is remarkable and outstanding how supportive you are towards the FIG Young Surveyors Network. All the things we are doing and in which we are successful have always the stamp of the FIG Foundation on it. What I want to say by that is that it would not be possible to have this success and this angle in addressing Young Surveyors  all over the world without you.”

I, personally, of course also want to say a big big thank you. By making it possible for me to travel to all this events and through that making it possible to be an ambassador of the FIG Young Surveyors Network is. I really think it is important to talk to people and be present and represent the Network and the idea behind it. By showing the ability to handle challenges, events and showing responsibility makes the Network an important partner for organizations, professional bodies and companies for future cooperation’s. I am proud to represent the FIG Young Surveyors Network and I am thankful for everything and everybody who is supporting this idea of including YS/YP by giving them a voice. Many many thanks again.

Below I want to give you an overview of the events I was able attend through your support in the year 2013 and what I am thinking why it was important for me being there.

FIG Pacific Small Island Developing States Symposium

18 – 20 September 2013, Suva, Fiki Island

Attending the FIG Pacific Small Island Developing States Symposium – Policies and Practices for Responsible Governance organized by FIG and World Bank gave me an insight to the multiple cooperations FIG is working on with World Bank, UN-Habitat GLTN and UN-GGIM. Around …. People attended this Symposium from all over the Pacific Region. Main purpose of this Symposium was to outline the work and research in the Pacific Region is done. A big focus was also on climate change and natural disasters they are threatening by and discussions on a way to go. The Symposium resulted in a Fiji Declaration, which you can find attached in the Annex. The Symposium was scheduled in plenary sessions in the start of the morning and afternoon and always after, two groups have been working on different aspects, one was organized by UN-Habitat and the World Bank the other one by UN-GGIM. For Kate and me the focus was also to identify Young Surveyors or people who can connect us with Young Surveyors in this region. And we have been successful and are already in e-mail contact with some of them. And of course we hope to intense the cooperation also in this region and hopefully see some of them in KL2014.

Also as I was arriving one day earlier I had the honor delegated by the FIG Office to take care if everything is in place and to check if everything is organized by the local organization. Although it was quite stressful it was also fun and I really appreciate all the work the FIG Office is doing now even more.

Social Tenure Domain Model (STDM) – An Introduction to a pro-poor land information system

23 September 2013, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Organizing and Attending the Social Tenure Domain Model (STDM) – An Introduction to a pro-poor land information system – was a very good experience. After a successful training event in Abuja Peter van Oosterom (organizer of LADM2013) addressed me asking if the FIG Young Surveyors Network would be interested to organize such an event in conjunction with the LADM 2013. And of course we took over the challenge. The organizer team was including various institutions and people as you can see listed in the Flyer attached. The Introduction to STDM was a big success with around 30 participants including young surveyors/professionals, students but also people working in national agencies and from different regions of Malaysia. By having such a beautiful mixture of bunch of people fruitful and intense discussions took place. People are now keen to learn more about it and are looking forward to probably have the possibility to take part in an extended version of this kind of training.

LADM2013 Workshop

24 – 25 September 2013, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Attending the LADM2013 – was again a very good experience. I attended all the sessions related to LADM and enjoyed the atmosphere being under high-qualified researchers and professionals. The sessions were quite intense as all sessions included discussions on improving and extending LADM. From the FIG Young Surveyors Network perspective it was important as future involvement in the research and implementation of LADM could be one chance for YS/YP to be involved also already with the perspective for KL2014 a lot organizational work could already be done directly in KL as e.g. attending the venue, drafting the framework to include the YSC into the congress and start working on the program.

CLGE General Assembly

3th – 5th October 2013, Chisinau, Moldova

Attending the CLGE General Assembly – was successful in every matter. And I have great news. By presenting and being present at CLGE for the last 1 ½ years the board finally decided to have one YS/YP on their board. I think this is great and this is exactly what we are aiming to have in all regions. Being recognized and now even involved in one of the European professional body shows us the success and that we are on the right way. The board of CLGE proposed to include me for the next half a year in the board. But as soon as possible I want to give over this position to a European Young Surveyor. Therefore the European Meeting in Lisbon will be used to identify the bright stars on the European sky and after they are showing their involvement and commitment to shape the European future somebody will be selected. About the selection process nothing is fixed yet, the only real requirement is that the YS/YP has to be supported by their national association and of course has to be committed and involved in the FIG Young Surveyors Network to ensure the future cooperation.

1st FIG Young Surveyors European Meeting

16 – 18 October 2013, Lisbon, Portugal

This was the Kick-off event of the Young Surveyors European Network. Basically the Portuguese association, Paula Dijkstra and me organized it from scratch and put in a lot of effort to make it happen. The event was a great success with over 150 YS/YP attending from all over Europe. We created the event interactive and used a lot of ideas to make it memorable event.