8 August, Majuro, Republic of Marshall Islands - The Republic of the Marshall Islands took steps to strengthen and improve the collection, storage and use of environmental information with the launch of the Inform project. Inform aims to collate environment information and house it in a single national database for better national reporting, planning and decision making.
Mr. Clarence Samuel, Director of the Office of Environmental Planning and Policy Coordination of the Republic of the Marshall Islands welcomed officials and participants to the Inform project inception meeting. “I am pleased to see the Inform project responding to key outcomes and recommendations of the RMI National Capacity Self-Assessment report”.
The Inform project is based with the Environmental Monitoring and Governance Programme of the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme and will assist Pacific island countries enhance their reporting capacity to the various multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). This will be done through addressing the on-going challenge of compiling high-quality, and up to date data on the environment including a place to store data.
“This project will help us address a number of challenges we have faced over the years. One of which is the lack of standardised procedures for the collection, storage and management of important environmental data and information,” said Ms. Abacca Anjain Maddison, Deputy Chief Secretary of RMI as she launched the Inform Project.
“Another issue is the difficulty in accessing historical and current data and information on our environment for monitoring the trends and the natural resources. We should be able to identify the drivers of change and make informed decisions and planning to meet our sustainable development goals.”
Since the launch there has been positive feedback from project managers and officials from the different sectors of RMI to contribute towards the portal through sharing data and information.
“The Majuro Weather Service Office is very happy to learn about the data portal,” said Mr. Lee Jacklick of the Majuro Weather Service Office. We are considering to use it as a platform to share our locally produced products to the public.”
The four-year regional Inform project (2017-2022) is funded through the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and implemented by UN Environment. It is executed by SPREP in the 14 Pacific island countries of the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia , Fiji, Kiribati, Republic of the Marshall Islands , Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea , Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. The development of national data portals will help enhance the monitoring and evaluation of environment work undertaken in the region by providing reliable access for national datasets and indicators for environment information.
Mr. Jochem Zoetelief, UN Environment GEF Task Manager congratulated SPREP and the Inform Project Team for achieving excellent results in a relatively short period of time since the inception meeting in November, 2017.
In her remarks on behalf of SPREP, Ms. Easter Galuvao, Director of Environmental Monitoring and Governance Programme of SPREP, congratulated and commended RMI on the successful completion of its State of Environment (SoE) Report and the National Environment Management Strategy.
“SPREP continues to play a lead role in assisting countries to develop capacity in environmental governance, policy and planning, monitoring and reporting. SPREP also continues to assist its Members to meet their obligations to multilateral environmental agreements including key international commitments such as the SDGs and the S.A.M.O.A pathway”.
A soft launch of RMI’s National Environmental Management Strategy (NEMS) 2017 – 2022 was held in the margins of the Inform project inception. NEMS is a commitment by the Republic of the Marshall Islands to conserve and improve its environment for current and future generations, promote sustainable development and integrate environment conservation and the proper governance of development efforts.
SPREP’s contribution in the formulation of RMI’s SoE Report and NEMS was made possible with funding support through the European Union- ACPMEA project implemented by UN Environment and executed by SPREP.
For more information on the ACPMEA 2 project, please contact Ms. Easter Galuvao, Director, Environmental Monitoring and Governance Programme on Email: [email protected].
Photo credits: Kelly Lorennij/Marshall Islands Journal
For a copy of the RMI NEMS document, please use this link:
https://www.sprep.org/programme/environmental-governance/planning-and-monitoring/resources
To learn more about the ACPMEAs project, please visit http://www.sprep.org/Projects/acp-meas-project
For more information on the Inform Project, contact Mr. Paul Anderson, Inform Project Manager on email: [email protected].
To learn more about the Inform project, please visit http://www.sprep.org/inform/home
