Undertake regular, systematic analysis of global observational requirements to identify, document, prioritize and close gaps in the information value chain. Publicize gap analysis and the need to close them.

Societal Benefit Areas will provide the framework to perform this analysis by providing an important function in engaging stakeholders from different domains, different regions, and different roles – including from end users to data providers.

Once in place and running this process is also expected to provide other key outputs such as contributing to user engagement and to knowledge development.

The GEO Secretariat will activate this SBA-related process, building on the activities of the communities that are already active within each SBA  and progressively cover the totality of the SBAs themself.

The Secretariat will coordinate the participation of key stakeholders to the agreed activities, will foster their engagement and the exchange among them and create the relevant linkages to GEO activities (Community, Initiatives and Flagships).

The GEO Secretariat will coordinate and support this SBA process by appointing one expert for each of them and by assigning dedicated resources in the trust fund, to support their activities.

The 2016 will be used to activate this process, starting from the SBAs  already active and ensuring participation by all the actors involved in the Information value chain from the observations to the end user service, (here included the private sector) as well as by the developers of the GCI. Expected outputs:

• Issue a document describing the process and how it will be run
• Define initial plans for each SBA
• Activate of the process for at least three SBAs by 2016

Proposed GEO Foundational TASKS