Minister for Lands and Mineral Resources, Jone Usamate, attended the World GIS day celebrations in Suva yesterday (16/11/22).
With the theme ‘Inspiring Spatial Citizens’, Minister Usamate highlighted that GIS has been present in Fiji for many years and the growing appreciation by the government as a powerful decision-making tool to guide planning, resource deployment, and informed decision is well known.
“From the creation of dashboards for the COVID-19 pandemic response to relief trackers to monitor and guide relief distribution during tropical cyclone events that affect our nation, GIS has enhanced the efficiency of governments operations and services, as it continues to support our national development priorities.”
“GIS has made it simpler to understand our surroundings and the environment and make decisions regarding the environment. Within GIS, one can analyse the geographic spread of data to gain better insight into distribution patterns.”
According to Minister Usamate, World GIS Day is a great opportunity to educate our citizens on how technology, and in this case GIS technology, is applied to their day-to-day lives. They can search for information using a smartphone or their personal computers to find out what types of services are available at which locations or they can use digital maps to find directions to a particular location.
In addition, he encouraged young people to consider GIS as a career choice that will allow them to expand their knowledge, develop their skills and support national development.