24^th FIG General Assembly, Seoul 2001
Appendices

Appendix to item 8

The member organizations are FIG; thus, the Bureau will focus on providing member organizations the tools to advance the global role of surveying by

• Recognizing surveying’s significant role in the betterment of humanity and its environs;
• Recognizing its responsibilities to all surveyors including those not represented by member organizations and will ensure that its activities will benefit the profession as a whole;
• Implementing mechanisms for increasing participation by member organizations in FIG activities and informing member organizations of FIG and other international surveying activities;
• Emphasizing the strengthening of professional institutions, the promoting of professional development, the participating in the development of international standards, and the working with international organizations;
• Developing contacts with UN agencies and other international organizations in the context of the commission work plans;
• Promoting international standards of professional competence;
• Encouraging the development and proper use of appropriate technology; and
• Encouraging research in all disciplines of surveying and to disseminate research results.

FIG’s financial security is directly related to its member organizations' (and potential new member organizations) members perceptions of FIG's responsiveness to their individual goals. Thus, the Bureau has as its primary objective

• The improving of FIG's responsiveness to the needs of member organizations' members.

The Bureau recognizes that the commissions are the implementers of FIG policies and programs. Thus, the Bureau plans to achieve this objective by

• Increasing the effectiveness and responsiveness of the commission work plans through Bureau oversight (ensuring that commission work plans reflect the FIG approved overall plan, ensuring coordination between commissions, tracking of work plan schedules, etc.);
• Providing financial grants to commissions for high priority projects;
• Developing, through the commissions, products, training and services which have practical application to member organizations and their individual members; and
• Communicating the commissions' accomplishments to the member organizations and others.

The specific tasks which the Bureau will under take during its administration are

1. To present, to the General Assembly in Prague 2000, the findings and recommendations of the task force on the Future Governance and Management of FIG and to implement the General Assembly’s approved changes and prepare the new Statutes for the approval of the General Assembly in Seoul 2001;

Status: The report and recommendations of the Task Force were presented and adopted in Prague. After that the new statutes have been prepared for adoption in Seoul and at the same time a new Task force is reviewing the commission and task force structure to be discussed at the breakout session in Seoul and with the goal to get the new structure adopted in Washington, 2002.

2. To review and update the strategic plan for approval to the General Assembly in Washington 2002;

Status: The Bureau has prepared together with the German Shadow Bureau a discussion document on the future strategies for the Federation. This report will be discussed at a breakout session in Seoul and the final report will be finalised for adoption in Washington 2002.

3. To develop a long-term financial strategy for FIG and present the strategy to the General Assembly in Washington 2002;

Status: The long term financial strategy is part of the new strategy including e.g. discussion and decisions on FIG’s role in organising events (and exhibitions) as well as fundraising through publications and closer co-operation with corporate members. Steps towards new corporate membership model has been taken as well as the FIG office has started to raise other income than membership fees.

4. To initiate and fund a reserve account;

Status: After the establishment of the FIG office the Federation has been able to start to collect a reserve account. The aim is to collect a reserve that is equal to one years expenditure. The annual surplus in the accounts have been about Sw. frs 50,000 and the reserve at the end of 2000 was about 150,000 Sw. frs.

5. To develop and implement work planning and budgeting processes which incorporate and coordinate all FIG organizational units;

Status: The work planning system is now scheduled so that the Bureau and Commission work plans will be coordinated before their approval in Washington DC. The budgeting system is still under development but change to increased project funding will give more flexibility in incorporating new projects. In addition possibilities for external funding have been studied and the amount of non-membership fee based income is increasing.

6. To continue the work of the task force on the Future Governance of FIG with ACCO to evaluate the need for any longer term changes to the Commission structure in more detail so that the decisions can be made at the General Assembly in Washington, 2002;

Status: The interim report of the Task force is under discussion at a breakout session in Seoul and the final recommendations will be made for adoption in Washington in 2002.

7. To make recommendations, to the 2002 General Assembly, on the process for selecting future congress sites;

Status: The role of FIG in organising congresses, working weeks, exhibitions and other events will be discussed at a breakout session on strategies in Seoul. This discussion will be followed by guidelines to be adopted in Washington.

8. To develop, for presentation to the 2002 General Assembly, protocols for the financing and the content of congresses and working weeks, including a policy for the distribution of congress and working week profits and losses;

Status: The role of FIG in organising congresses, working weeks, exhibitions and other events will be discussed at a breakout session on strategies in Seoul. This discussion will be followed by guidelines to be adopted in Washington

9. To develop, for approval by the 2001 General Assembly, a list of authorities, responsibilities and duties for the Bureau, FIG Office, and the commissions;

Status: This is part of the new governance structure. The responsibilities of the Council members etc. will be adopted in Seoul and the new responsibilities of the Commissions etc. in Washington DC. The current information is available on the FIG web site.

1. To increase membership within under-represented regions: especially, the Caribbean, and Central and South America;

Status: FIG has got new member association from Colombia in 2000 and Puerto Rico in 2001, two affiliate members (Guatemala and El Salvador) and several academic members from this region. In addition several contacts have been made (Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Venezuela, Honduras, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, etc.). Visits have been made to Argentina, El Salvador, Puerto Rico and Venezuela and three times to events in Colombia. Several events and visits are under preparation before the end of 2002. The main event under preparation is the UN/FIG Seminar to be held in Mexico in September 2002.

2. To increase secondary membership in countries that are already members of FIG;

Status: This is very much depending on the member associations. The Bureau is promoting this during the visits to member associations. A special input has been given to associations in valuation and real estate business. Second members have joined from Czech Republic in 2000 and Finland (and Armenia) in 2001.

3. To increase FIG regional activities and to seek the support and the participation of member associations and commission delegates to these activities;

Status: During 2000 there was a regional conference for the Mediterranean region in Malta and a seminar on European education curricula in Delft. In addition the Commission 2 seminar in Rosario, Argentina has resulted in further activities in South America. In 2001 there will be a bigger regional conference for Africa in Nairobi. Further regional seminars are planned for the Western Africa, Mekong region and Central and South America (Mexico and Colombia).

4. To increase academic membership and promote the Surveying Education Database;

Status: The SEDB is in function and the number of academic members is over 30 from over 20 countries. Additional promotion is needed and support from the member associations requested. Commission 2 has established a project on developing the contents of the SEDB.

5. To increase sponsor membership and develop the benefits of being a sponsor member;

Status: The benefits and categories of corporate membership has been reviewed and updated in December 2000. Two new corporate members have joined since the working week in Prague. Several other corporate members are expected to join soon.

6. To arrange for Bureau members and other FIG representatives to visit all member associations;

Status: The US Bureau has visited 26 countries by the working week in Seoul. It will be impossible for the Bureau to visit all member associations during its term of office because the term of office will be shorter than normally.

7. To encourage visits to the FIG office by member association representatives and to use the FIG office for Commission and other events;

Status: There are visits from 5-8 member associations annually to the FIG Office. In addition the Bureau and ACCO have had their meetings in Copenhagen. The next meeting will be the ACCO meeting in October 2001. The office is available for commission seminars and working group meetings up to 25 people.

8. To develop strategies to encourage the surveyor to be customer oriented and to provide a quality service;

Status: This topic is incorporated into the work being undertaken by Commission 1 WG1.2 which is producing a "FIG Guide to Business Practices" and which will contain a chapter titled "Quality and Customer Service".

1. To improve coordination between the Bureau, ACCO and the Commissions;

Status: This is and has been one of the main topics at the ACCO meetings. It will be essential issue when the ACCO will discuss the new work plans for 2002-2006 in October 2001.

2. To develop FIG and its commissions' co-operation with international and regional surveying related organizations identified by the commissions.

Status: Formal relations have been established with ISM and IAG that were most often nominated as partners at the ACCO meeting in Prague. There are several joint seminars and activities between different organisations and their working groups.

1. To develop and deepen co-operation with partner and sister organizations and to sign memoranda of understanding or agreements whenever needed;

Status: Formal relations have been established with ISM and IAG that were most often nominated as partners at the ACCO meeting in Prague. Similar agreements are planned to be signed e.g. with ISPRS and ICA.

2. To enter into cooperative agreements with sister organizations to work together on areas of common concern;

Status: Formal relations have been established with ISM and IAG that were most often nominated as partners at the ACCO meeting in Prague. Similar agreements are planned to be signed e.g. with ISPRS and ICA.

3. To identify and make contact with UN related agencies having common areas of interest with FIG and with whom FIG does not currently have a formal relationship;

Status: A Memorandum of Understanding is under preparation with FAO:

4. To enter into a co-operative agreement with the Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the Permanent Committee for GIS Infrastructure for Asia and the Pacific (PCGIAP) and other regional organizations and to act as a catalyst for the establishment of a formalized regional body in the Americas dealing with Spatial Data Infrastructures;

Status: : FIG has participated several regional UN meetings and have close relations to these but there has been no progress on formal agreements. After the progress report was originally prepared there has been good progress especially with the PC IDEA (e.g. FIG participation to the 7th UNRCC and 2nd PC IDEA in New York) and further it has been agreed to organise a joint FIG/UN/PC IDEA Workshop in Mexico, September 2002, detailed information on the progress is available on the annual report of the Director, FIG/UN Liaison. 6 May 2001

5. To promote the activities of the UNCHS(Habitat) global campaigns especially the Global Campaign for Secure Tenure;

Status: FIG is very actively involved in UNCHS campaigns and activities, see report on UN activities.

6. To prepare a report on progress made during the five years since the Habitat II Conference for the June 2001 special meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York (Istanbul+5);

Status: There is a report on FIG activities on the Habitat Agenda 1996–2001 that has been provided to UNCHS, however there is no report on how surveyors have implemented the agenda in general. FIG Agenda 21 is the response of the surveyors to this demand.

7. To evaluate the possibilities to participate in the process of Rio+10 to be held in 2002;

Status: FIG has decided to be actively involved in the Rio+10 process that has just started.

8. To develop the coordination mechanisms for synchronizing the planning and budgeting of FIG/UN cooperative programs;

Status: There is no real action on this. The co-operation is still based on case by case decisions.

9. To prepare for distribution, by the World Bank, compilations of the costs and benefits of various cadastre/land registration projects and checklists on how to successfully conduct land administration projects;

Status: FIG is not really able to fulfil this task. Commission 7 has a working group on benchmarking. In addition there has been discussions on collecting best practices database but the research task itself is too big for FIG.

10. To develop the mechanisms required to effectively liaise with FAO regional organizations;

Status: To be included in the MoU with FAO.

11. To co-operate with the World Trade Organisation in the promotion of global markets for surveying services;

Status: No progress since Prague.

12. To develop further co-operation with certification and standardisation bodies to ensure that workable standards which take full account of the needs of FIG's members result;

Status: This work is successfully done by the Task force on standards, see task force reports.

13. To develop strategies that facilitate the transfer of donated equipment to educational establishments in developing countries.

Status: The idea of donating instruments to developing countries has been adopted by the sponsors. First instruments will be donated during 2001.

1. To improve communication between the Bureau, the commissions, and the member associations and, through them, to their individual members;

Status: The main effort has been put to the development and improvement of the FIG web site.

2. To establish effective methods of notifying member associations and their members of FIG services and products (e.g. seminars, workshops, publications);

Status: FIG web site and email distribution lists (sorted by commissions, task forces etc.) have been used for this purpose.

3. To publish an annual review which will serve as FIG's main medium of external communication and principal marketing tool;

Status: This will happen, but the Bureau has decided to test to combine the Annual Review 2000 with Bulletin no 73.

4. To publish FIG quarterly bulletin both as printed and internet versions;

Status: In 2000 only one Bulletin was published but in 2001 normal four issues will be published.

5. To develop FIG home page as the main channel for daily information delivery;

Status: This has been implemented. Monthly news and more material from members are expected to be included in the future.

6. To develop recommendations on the publication of a FIG journal containing selected papers presented at FIG or FIG sponsored events;

Status: This is part of the future strategy discussions.

7. To produce literature describing why clients should use the services of surveyors;

Status: It is not possible to produce this literature during this work plan. The Bureau has agreed to identify links for marketing purposes (what approaches are most effective, best practices and case studies) so that this topic could be included in the work plan for 2003–2006.

8. To conduct a major internet campaign publicizing FIG's work;

Status: No development on this.

9. To build and maintain a database of international, regional, and national organizations whose activities are surveying related;

Status: No progress on this but some concerns have been presented to what extend this is work of FIG.

10. To maintain an internet accessible system for holding FIG publications.

Status: This has been implemented.

FIG Office

7 March 2001

This page is maintained by the FIG Office. Last revised on 15-01-08.