“Project FairHair – A global geoinformation demonstration project. A global demonstration project initiated by the Global Forum for Geography and Statistics (GFGS)”

Project FairHair aim at testing and describing generic business process models involving exchange of geoinformation across nations and institutions at a global scale. Exchange and integration of geography and statistics on a global scale, or over larger geographic regions, often meets obstacles like diverse models for describing the Earth, lack of common frameworks for handling overlaps and gaps between borders. Testing the Discrete Global Grid Systems abstract specification by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC DGGS) is proposed and agreed upon as a GFGS technical contribution to focus the GFGS effort. Additionally, the need for complementary effort to other international initiatives (such as UN-GGIM and IAG) on global geospatial data is emphasized. To this end, case studies, concepts, and developments that provide demonstrations of the added-value of local solutions to global problems, capacity building for global frameworks, or global infrastructure issues for the integration of geography and statistics at a global level, addressing global challenges like the monitoring of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), would be considered complementary to other existing international initiatives. As a first step, existing and planned projects are sought aligned according to a local to global thought. Solutions should work at any geographic level and across continents, disciplines and societies.