The Provincial GIS Forum recently organised a GIS Day event as part of the World Geography Awareness Campaign.

The event took place in Bisho, Premier's Residence, State House, to promote and create awareness about the use of GIS within Eastern Cape Provincial Government.

The following objectives guided the GIS Day Team in the planning and hosting of GIS Open Day event/workshop.

* To enhance awareness of the overall use of GIS within departments.

* To create an overall awareness with regard to how effectively GIS can be used in the development of a sound and informed decision support system.

* To highlight the role GIS plays in support of departmental core functions.

* To motivate for more co-ordinated GIS implementation and cooperation between departments through participating in the Provincial GIS Forum, which discusses issues of GIS standards in terms of software, data formats, metadata, projections, data acquisition, etc.

* To highlight the role of the Office of the Premier in the coordination and building of the Provincial Geographic Information System and strengthening GIS capacity within departments.

The event included a Map Gallery, GIS demonstrations desk, presentations by organisations including GIMS, DRPW, Economic Affairs and Tourism and Rural Livelihood Programme. All presentations delivered an important message of 'what GIS is' and 'how geography through GIS affects our day to day activities'. The presentations attracted much interest from participants through demonstrations of how GIS is being implemented as a decision support tool as well as a management tool.

The event provided an atmosphere of cooperation, networking, partnerships and communication across a broad range of provincial government, district and local council representatives and fostered cooperative governance.

The following challenges were experienced:

* Difficulty of establishing cooperation on a joint venture project, between Provincial Government Departments especially on budget, provisioning issues.

* Limited funds resulted in limited number of participants.

Notwithstanding the challenges encountered, the GIS Day Committee has no doubt that the very first GIS day event organised by the Provincial GIS forum was a great success. This is evident from a number of letters and feedback from participants and presenters who have all congratulated the departmental organising committee for a job well done.

For more information contact GIMS, 011 695 0400, www.gims.com