The International Cartographic Association and the United Nations have a long and common history. The United Nations established the 19 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in 2015. These goals represent a major diplomatic feat. They evolved from the original Millennium goals. The UN reached out to the then president of the ICA, Menno Jan Kraak, to help come up with ideas to map the SDGs. The UN Member states need ideas and guidance on how to make maps to lead to sustainable solutions both locally and globally. This is no easy task. First, President Kraak invited commissions to use their expertise to make posters to map the SDGs. From these initial ideas, President Kraak started to write a tailored open access cartography textbook titled Mapping for a Sustainable World. Kraak invited ICA and UN actors to co-write this book. From the ICA he invited UX Commission Chair Robert Roth and his employee Britta Ricker. Ayako Kagawa was the lead from the United Nations side of the publication, Guillaume Le Sourd from the UN also contributed significantly including most of the centerfold maps. Together the team identified the key cartographic concepts to include in the book and the SDG indicator data to be used as illustrative examples for each chapter. The team met weekly on Fridays to discuss progress, review each other’s work, and to understand the needs of the target audience. This team challenged each other on a regular basis. You can read more about the process and all of the contributors involved can be read here in this article published in the International Journal of Cartography Making and remaking Mapping for a Sustainable World: a retrospective and prospective analysis as a case study in Processual Cartography https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23729333.2025.2458895?src=recsys . The book was jointly published between the United Nations and the International Cartographic Association, and was released online at the end of 2020 and can be downloaded here Mapping for a sustainable world /
During the official book launch of the textbook at the ICC2021 in Florence Italy, a working group called Cartography for Sustainable Development was formed. Tim Trainor, the ICA president at the time, was a big proponent of this effort and offered guidance to the new working group chair Britta Ricker. This working group was voted in as a Commission at the ICC2023 in Cape Town South Africa. Since then, the commission has been very active, you can read more about their previous accomplishments and planned activities on this website!
