Geneva, 14 June 2011
- A new initiative is set to improve the
sharing of information relating to over
a dozen international agreements that protect
the environment. The Multilateral
Environmental Agreements Information and
Knowledge Management Initiative aims to
assist Parties to Multilateral Environmental
Agreements (MEAs), and the environment community
at large, to access MEA information from
one central location.
Supported by UNEP, the
initiative currently includes 17 MEAs from
12 Secretariats hosted by three UN organizations
and the International Union for Conservation
of Nature (IUCN). It is open to observers
involved in MEA information and data management.
The first project -
InforMEA, the United Nations Information
Portal on Multilateral Environmental Agreements
- was launched on 14 June during the initiative's
2nd Steering Committee Meeting, attended
by Ms. Maria Louisa Silva, Executive Secretary
of the Barcelona Convention, Mr. John Scanlon,
Secretary General of the Convention on International
Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna
and Flora (CITES), and Mr. Jim Willis, Executive
Secretary of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm
Conventions.
"With the launch
of InforMEA the global environmental community
has taken a major stride forward in making
access to information more transparent and
easier to apply in solving the complex challenges
we face in the Information Age", said
Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary*-General
and Executive Director, of the United Nations
Environment Programme (UNEP)
The InforMEA Portal
presents Conference of the Parties decisions
and resolutions, news, calendars, events,
country specific MEA Membership, national
focal points and, in the near future, national
reports and implementation plans organized
against a set of 200 hierarchical terms
taken from MEA Conference of the Parties
(COP) Agendas.
The project harvests
and displays information directly from MEA
Secretariat websites and databases, who
remain the custodians of their data. This
allows for accurate and timely data availability
in a cost effective manner. MEA secretariats
individually implement the technical solution
identified.
Harmonization of information
standards and formats will facilitate the
development of many other knowledge tools
among conventions. For example, the Convention
on Migratory Species and CITES could display
the species listed on their respective appendices
or the Stockholm Convention may feature
decisions related to endangered migratory
species threatened by POPs. Once such an
application is developed, the tool is maintained
at minimal cost.
