Over the last five years, the world of Earth observation has changed dramatically, stimulated by the recognition of the World Summit on Sustainable Development that the quest for sustainable development can only be successful if decisions are well informed by Earth observations. After the Summit in 2002 in Johannesburg, and the G8 Meeting in 2003, the first Earth Observation Summit (EOS) with participation of 33 countries established the ad hoc Group on Earth Observation (GEO), with the task to write within 18 months an implementation plan for a Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). Many Working group meetings, six large GEO meetings and two more EOS later, the 10-Year-Implementation Plan for GEOSS was accepted in February 2005 in Brussels. There, GEO was established as a more permanent group, which today has more than 75 Member Countries and about fifty Participating Organizations. Since then, GEO has worked toward the implementation of GEOSS. GGOS is the Observing System of the IAG. Initially, it was established as a Pilot Project at the IUGG meeting in 2003 in Sapporo, Japan. At the EOS-II in Tokyo, IAG joint the (then ad hoc) GEO as a Participating Organization. IAG delegated representation in GEO to GGOS. After an initial planning phase and the implementation of main steering elements of the organization during the interval 2003 to 2007, GGOS was elevated in 2007 to a full component of IAG.