Subject: ENRIN-Africa: Environment and Natural Resources Info...



Greetings Colleagues,
For your reference please see Number 4 in the Series of Briefing 
Notes which explain our activities within UNEPs Division of 
Environmental Information and Assessment. Environmental 
Information Networking (EIN) on ENRIN-Africa.
_____________________________________________________________

Briefing Note: Feb 14 1997

ENRIN - Environment and Natural Resources Information 
Networking - Africa Region 


Focus:
UNEP's ENRIN Programme evolved to address the following AGENDA 
21 issues (Chapter 40):

The accessibility of relevant and appropriate environment and 
natural resources information to decision making processes at 
national and regional levels;

The capacity of existing national and regional institutions to 
manage environment and natural resources information and 
improve delivery to decision making processes.

Objectives:
At the National level - Establish or enhance operational 
environment and natural resources information systems (EIS) 
and networks (EIN) which fully support the information 
requirements of strategic planning frameworks, assessment and 
reporting, for national environment management action plans 
and natural resource use. Five national networks are currently 
being developed (Uganda, Ghana, Zambia Eritrea and Tanzania) 
and proposals to establish or enhance two more (Madagascar 
and Botswana) are currently under development.

At the Sub-regional level - Establish or enhance networks 
which link national environment and natural resources 
databases to established sub-regional organisations and 
secretariats. This will provide information to support action 
plans initiated to deal with issues related to shared 
resources (e.g. Regional Seas and River Basin Action Plans). 
Currently networks are under development in four sub-regions: 
the Permanent Inter-State Committee for Drought Control in the 
Sahel (CILSS), the Economic Community of West African States 
(ECOWAS), the Inter Governmental Authority on Development 
(IGAD) and the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), 
and planned for the Indian Ocean Commission (IOC).

At the Regional level - Establish or enhance networks which 
link sub-regional and national environment and natural 
resources information systems and the specialized databases of 
the UN agencies and UNEP. This will facilitate regional 
assessments, within a global framework, of major environmental 
issues, environmental reporting, and will enable analysis of 
data for detecting emerging issues of
mobilizing responses to environmental change.

Strategy and Approach:
The ENRIN approach to capacity-building has four steps, each 
carried out with national or regional partner institutions:

National or regional consultations to evaluate requirements 
and develop strategies to address priority environment 
assessment, reporting, and/or associated data management 
issues;

Formulation of investment projects to enhance or develop the 
necessary institutional skills, technology and staff 
capacities together with representatives from participating 
institutions;

Joint efforts to secure funding for implementation, when 
possible with seed funding from UNEP's Environment Fund used 
to leverage funds from multi and bilateral donors;

Finally, provision of long-term technical backstopping 
assistance.


For more information please contact:

Mr. Kagumhao Kakuyo
Regional Coordinator ENRIN-Africa
Division of Environmental Information and Assessment
UNEP, P.O. Box 30552
Nairobi, Kenya
Tel: (254-2) 623513 or 624234
Fax: (254-2) 623943 or 623944
E-mail: bob.kakuyo@unep.org or eainfo@unep.org


Thank you.


Beth Ingraham (Ms.) ingrahab@unep.org 
                 or infotinf@unep.org
Information Officer                  
INFOTERRA/PAC, UNEP                 
P.O. Box 47074, Nairobi              INFOTERRA/PAC           
Kenya                                The Global Environmental
Tel:(254-2) 624299;                  Information Exchange    
Fax:  (254-2)624269 or 226949        Network

-
message sent by infoterra@cedar.univie.ac.at
to signoff from the list, send an email to
majordomo@cedar.univie.ac.at
the message body should read
signoff infoterra your@email.address
-