Dear Colleagues,

At the GEO Plenary and the "GEOSS in the Americas" meeting in
Washington, D.C., November 14-20, 2009, I had a chance to discuss
options for the association of a scientific/non-governmental observing
system with intergovernmental organizations with several representatives
of intergovernmental organizations. These dialogs changed my perspective
on two issues relevant to GGOS, and some of the ideas express may be of
interest for the current discussions around GGOS.

First of all, it may be helpful to clearly distinguish between two goals:
(1) ensuring sustained funding for the global geodetic infrastructure
and IAG Services on which GGOS is being built, and
(2) developing a higher level of intergovernmental clout for GGOS in order to
raise its visibility and voice in the intergovernmental environment for
which GGOS is relevant.

(1) Sustained funding
=====================

The first goal could be the focus of an inter-agency group bringing
together the (mostly) governmental agencies that fund, or could
contribute to the funding, of the Services and geodetic infrastructure.
By giving this group an advisory or, even stronger, steering role for
GGOS, it could be ensured that GGOS would appropriately consider the
needs of the funding agencies, besides taking care of the needs of the
mainly scientific users inside and outside of IAG.

It is worthwhile to mention here that the updated GEO Work Plan now
includes the Sub-Task AR-09-03e "Global Geodetic Observing System" under
the overarching Task AR-09-03 "Advocating for Sustained Observating
Systems." Other Sub-Tasks of AR-09-03 are AR-09-03a: Global Terrestrial Observations; AR-09-03b: Legacy of the International Polar Year 2007-08, AR-09-03c: Global Ocean Observation System; AR-09-03d: Global Observing System (GOS).

It might be of interest for a future inter-agency group to consider
being linked to the Sub-Task Team, or, potentially, using this Sub-Task
as the framework for the inter-agency group. The advantages would be
several: (i) The group would be linked to or embedded into an
intergovernmental framework without the need of creating a new one. (ii)
GEO Task Teams are rather flexible and free to organize their work and
structure as appropriate for the Task, so that the inter-agency group
would have all the freedom need to find an appropriate organizational
structure. (iii) The results of the inter-agency group and Sub-Task
could feed into the GEO Committees and into more than 80 governments of
the GEO Member Countries and more than 55 Participating Organizations
(POs), many of them intergovernmental or international scientific
organizations. (iv) By strengthening this Sub-Task through participation
of the inter-agency group, GGOS would be very visible together with the
other intergovernmental observing systems. (v) The Sub-Task could also
attract representatives from a number of the POs (such as ICSU, WRCP,
ISPRA, COSPAR, IEEE, CEOS, GOOS, GTOS, GCOS, UNESCO, UNOOSA, ...) and
thus provide many channels to actually advocate for the sustained
funding and operation of the geodetic infrastructure, which partly is
provided by some of these POs or essential for their activities.

Sub-Task AR-09-03e is lead by IAG, with the point of contact being
Michael Pearlman. The process of detailing the Task Sheet, which among
others describes the planned activities and anticipated output has just
started. Moreover, discussions with several countries and agencies are
on-going to consider additional Sub-Task co-leads. If the option of
linking the inter-agency group to this Sub-Task is of interest for the
inter-agency group, then the group should be involved in the formulation
of the Task Sheet and the decision on co-leads as soon as possible.

(2) Intergovernmental clout
===========================

In the past, we have considered several options for lifting GGOS to an
intergovernmental level. As pointed out by Gerhard Beutler and others,
transitioning GGOS into an intergovernmental system would require to
share "ownership" of GGOS with an intergovernmental organization, and
would carry the danger of loosing or at least reducing the control IAG
currently has on GGOS. An intergovernmental GGOS also would have much
reduced flexibility compared to what GGOS currently enjoys under the
steering of a non-governmental scientific organization.

In order to decide what the appropriate level and option of
intergovernmental clout for GGOS is, we have to consider what we want to
achieve with this clout. In my opinion, the main goals of this step
would be (i) to raise the visibility of GGOS in relevant
intergovernmental context and (ii) to put more authority and credibility
to the voice of GGOS in intergovernmental discussions of relevant topics
such as global change, sea level rise, water cycle observations, and
Earth observations in general. As a "side effect" some level of
intergovernmental clout would also ease the advocating for a sustained
operation of the infrastructure underpinning GGOS, but - as discussed
above - ensuring the sustained funding does not necessarily require an
intergovernmental clout for GGOS.

The discussions during the GEO week opened new perspectives which might
allow to achieve these two goals without IAG loosing any control or
"ownership" of GGOS. Javier Valladares, IOC Chair, pointed out that in
non-governmental organizations focus is mainly on issues, while in
governmental organizations focus is mainly on process. GGOS is far more
focused on issues than on process, and therefore it should essentially
remain an non-governmental system. Javier Valladares also proposed that
a higher level of intergovernmental clout could be achieved through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between IAG (as "owner" of GGOS) and one or more
intergovernmental organizations, which would associate formally the
(non-governmental) GGOS to these organizations without changing the
nature of GGOS. The MoU could also establish a formal reporting process
for GGOS to the intergovernmental organization. He stated that IOC would
be open to discuss a MoU between IOC and IAG, and that such a MoU could
include a reporting of GGOS to the Plenary meetings of IOC. This would
elevate GGOS to the same level as GOOS and GLOSS, which both report to
the IOC Plenary.

Choosing this option would also allow for IAG to negotiate MoUs with
(carefully selected) other intergovernmental organizations, with UNFCCC
being certainly a candidate to be considered (which would bring GGOS on
a similar level as GCOS). Other potential candidates are FAO (with GTOS
being the observing system reporting to FAO), and WMO (which is setting
up the GOS).

I discussed this new option introduced by Javier Valladares with
representatives of several of the above mentioned organizations, and,
acknowledging the important contribution of GGOS, the response was
generally positive. Over the last five years, IAG through GGOS has been
an active contributor to many GEO activities, and in doing so often
demonstrated the important contribution of GGOS to global Earth
observations to many of the POs in GEO. We are now in the position to
build on this recognition and to negotiate a very limited number of MoUs
with the most relevant intergovernmental organizations. This would
provide intergovernmental clout to GGOS without taking anything away
from IAG.

I hope, these considerations are helpful in the further discussion of
sustained funding and an intergovernmental clout for GGOS.

Best regards,

Hans-Peter



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