News in 2014

FIG General Assembly 2014

Elections of new President and Vice Presidents

16 and 21 June 2014, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia


FIG 27th General Assembly was held during the XXV FIG Congress in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and took place at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre. The Congress 2014 attracted more than 2500 participants from almost 100 countries. At the General Assembly 61 member associations were present.


Delegates at the 1st session of the General Assembly

ELECTIONS

The main issues decided by the General Assembly were elections and decision on the venues of FIG Working Week 2017 and FIG Congress 2018.

Prof. Chyssy Potsiou, Technical Chamber of Greece, was elected President for the term 2015-2018. Prof. Chryssy Potsiou was the sole candidate for the presidency. Prof. Potsiou has been active within FIG since 1982 and has served as vice-president since 2011, Chair of Task Force for Housing and Property, and as FIG Commission 3 chair for the period 2007-2010. Since 1992, she has been employed as Special Research and Teaching Scientist at the Lab of Photogrammetry, Topography Division, School for Rural and Surveying Engineering, NTUA, at a permanent position. In parallel, she has been involved in several research projects and private sector projects. During the period 2005-2010 she has been employed as Lecturer at the Topography Division, School of Rural and Surveying Engineering, NTUA, at a permanent position, teaching Cadastre, Land Management and Real Estate Valuation; since 2010 she was elected to the position of Assistant Professor in the same field of activity. Since 2013 she was elected to the position of Associate Professor at NTUA. Prof Potsiou has also been an elected bureau member of the UN ECE Working Party on Land Administration for the period 2001-2015 and an elected member of the management board of the Hellenic Association of Rural and Surveying Engineers. With over 30 years of experience in education, research, training and international capacity building in land management and administration she will represent FIG, as a widely recognised Non-Governmental Organisation, in the global scene. Prof Potsiou was elected for the position of FIG President by a secret ballot. Her election was welcomed with applause by the General Assembly.

Prof. Rudolf Staiger, DVW Germany was re-elected as Vice President and member of the FIG Council and Diane Dumashie, Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, United Kingdom was elected as Vice President for the term 2015-18. Prof. Rudolf Staiger was re-elected as member of the FIG Council after a very successful four years term 2010 – 2014. Prof. Staiger has been chairing the FIG Commission 5, Positioning and Measurement, from 2006 – 2010. He is a full Professor at the University of Applied Sciences, Department of Surveying Engineering and Geoinformatics in Bochum, Germany. He represents the Gesellschaft für Geodäsie, Geoinformation und Landmanagement e.V., DVW (Society of Geodesy, Geoinformation and Landmanagement) as FIG member association.

Dr. Diane Dumashie is chair of the FIG Africa Task Force. She is a doctor in land economics and coastal planning and is managing director of Dumashie Ltd. She has been substantially involved in the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). She was chair of the FIG Commission 8 on Spatial Planning and Economic Development 2002–2010. She is a well-known international expert in the areas of African land issues, land and property development and economic regeneration as well as related institutional building.

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Current and incoming council: From left Vice President 2010-2018 Rudolf Staiger , President 2011-14 Teo CheeHai, President 2015-18 Chryssy Potsiou, Vice President 2015-18 Diane Dumashie and Vice President 2012-16 Cheng Pengfei. Vice President Bruno Razza was unfortunately not present.

The Venue for the FIG Working Week 2017 will be Helsinki Finland, co-organised by the Finnish Association of Geodetic and Land Surveyors (MIL) and Finnish Association of Surveyors (MAKLI), with the National Land Survey of Finland (NLS) as partner. 2017 is the 100th year of Finnish independence. The FIG Congress 2018 will take place in Istanbul, Turkey, co-organised by by the Turkish Chamber of Survey and Cadastre Engineers. The Turkish Chamber of Survey and Cadastre Engineers have for many years wished to attract the congress to Turkey and they are looking very much forward to welcoming all FIG members to Istanbul.

John Hohol, NSPS, USA and Iain Greenway, ICES, UK were both appointed Honorary Members of the Federation. Both have been very active within FIG for many years. One new member association was admitted, The Institute of Surveyors (St. Lucia) Inc. ISSL and Botswana Surveying and Mapping Association is returning as member. In addition, the membership application of several affiliate, academic and corporate members were endorsed, namely:

  • State Committee for Land and Cartography, State Aerogeodesy Corporation, Azerbaijan
  • Central Office of Immovable Property Registration – IPRO Albania
  • General Commission for Survey (GCS), General Directorate of Geodesy and Land Survey (GLS), Saudi Arabia.
  • MundoGEO, Brazil, (category F, regional level)
  • The State Enterprise “State Land Cadastre Centre”, Ukraine (Category C, silver level)
  • JKO Surveyors & Consultants (Pvt) Ltd, Sri Lanka (category F, regional level)
  • University of Thies, UFR Science of engineering from Senegal

Unfortunately we had to say good by to Federación Argentina de Agrimensores FADA, Argentina and Colegio de Ingenieros y Agrimensores de Puerto Rico.

All Chairs Elects of the 10 FIG Commissions and Young Surveyors Network were with applause appointed Chairs of Commission for the term 2015-2018.

CHANGES TO FIG STATUTES

FIG General Assembly has for several years discussed the voting structure for elections during FIG General Assemblies. It has been positive to see the engagement of many FIG members both as participants in a working group and in discussions at sessions during the FIG conferences and General Assemblies during the last three years. This year the voting structure was tabled for final voting and approved. All members up to 999 members get 1 vote, members with 1000 members and over get 2 votes and members with 5500 or more members get 3 votes. Further two changes to the statutes were approved on force majeure and FIG Task Forces. The changes were already implemented at the first session of the General Assembly and the new voting structure was used for the elections during the second session.

FIG Council had received two proposals from members and during the first session of the General Assembly there were Interesting discussions on election period of the President as well as on regional nomination bodies. FIG Council encourages members to actively participate in discussions in FIG.
The General Assembly further decided on the membership fees for 2016 to be the same as in 2015 (and the previous years) so 4.48 EUR per member up to 5,500 members. It was decided to set up a new reserve for IT apart from the already existing reserve for events. The surplus of the year 2013 was 5,883 EUR.

PRESENTATIONS

All commission chairs, task force chairs, chairs of networks and permanent institutions reported from their work during the last year and also for their entire term 2011-14. FIG Foundation also reported from their work during the last year and furthermore presented the 8 Foundation-sponsored participants to the congress all from various continents.

Joint FIG/UN-GGIM-AP Statement on Global Geodetic Reference Frame

During the FIG/UN-GGIM-AP Technical Sessions on Global Geodetic Reference Frame, a joint Statement was adopted.  The UN-GGIM-AP/FIG Statement on Global Geodetic Reference Frame recognized the growing need for an accurate and stable Global Geodetic Reference Frame to support, inter alia, earth observation, including sea level and climate change monitoring, natural hazard and disaster management and a wide range of other activities in public and private sectors throughout the World, contributing towards inclusive social progress, environmental sustainability and economic development.

The Statement was adopted by the UN-GGIM-AP Executive Board at its meeting on 20th June during the XXV FIG Congress and urges -

  • member states and their representatives within UN-GGIM-AP together with all member states and their representatives at the fourth session of the Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management, to support the approval of a draft resolution on Global Geodetic Reference Frame for Sustainable Development, and to submit to the 2013-14 session of the UN General Assembly for final adoption; and
  • FIG member associations and all other membership groups of FIG, to take appropriate initiatives to inform and encourage the representatives of their respective countries to the fourth session of the Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management, to support the approval of the draft resolution on Global Geodetic Reference Frame for Sustainable Development and its submission to the UN General Assembly.

At the end of the General Assembly John Hohol introduced the idea of a “Global Surveyors Week”.

President CheeHai Teo presented his report that was a summary of the work undertaken by FIG during the last four years, and at the end of the 2nd session of the General Assembly he gave his closing speech:

FIG PUBLICATIONS

Since last General Assembly, FIG has published the following publications:

All publications can be found here

More information:

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President CheeHai Teo greets incoming president Chryssy Potsiou
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Angel Yanikiev from Chamber of Graduated Surveyors, Bulgaria carries the bowl with voting sheets to count the votes.

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Delegates followed intensely the reports and debates.

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President Teo reporting activities and results from his term as president

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President Teo reports to General Assembly on the development of the federation for the last four years.

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John Hohol receives his certificate of appointment to FIG Honorary Member

 

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11 July 2014