(Status: 23-04-2020)
The Working Group will assist the UNGEGN Bureau in co-operating with the UN-GGIM committee in order to emphasize, promote and support UNGEGN tasks and activities;
The Working Group will monitor the availability of free and easily-accessible authorised digital geographical names data as it is seen as a key driver in encouraging the use of nationally-standardised names;
The Working Group will provide consultancy to the developments related to the UNGEGN database, UNECA “UNECA Africa GeoNyms database/gazetteer initiative”, the INSPIRE initiative, the UN and European gazetteer projects, the GIS web-based World Geonames Application and other projects of developing countries through training courses;
The Working Group will promote innovation and research as well as technical issues through the UNGEGN Information Bulletin, referencing recently presented documents;
The Working Group will increase the usage of the online discussion forum by utilizing Wiki functionality in order to investigate on issues and specific topics like e.g. volunteered geographic information, crowd sourced data and Linked Open Data; and facilitating discussions on data modeling and database design, on general issues in the context of data maintenance (like feature classifications), production and distribution in the context of Spatial data infrastructures (SDIs);
The Working Group will consider a review of the content of Part II of the UNGEGN Technical Reference Manual, comprising issues related to feature codes for international use, and assist the UNGEGN secretariat with the publication of an amended version;
The Working Group will assist in raising awareness about the lack of availability of standardized names by participating and presenting geographical names data topics at national and international conferences organized in the fields of geospatial information management (comprising spatial data infrastructures), cartography and remote sensing;
The Working Group will continue to arrange meetings and workshops, at least one between UNGEGN Sessions on new trends like Linked Open Data applications, geographical data files re-engineering due to Sustainabe Development Goals' (SDG) requirements or speech technology (a method for the collection and storage of geographical names).