Koror, Palau, 03 September, 2018 - The SPREP Inform project team recently visited Palau to launch the Inform Project to government and national stakeholders and conduct training on the environment data portal, and on-line reporting tool. The Inform project aims to collate environment information and house it in a single national database for better national reporting, planning and decision making.
The Inform inception meeting was held on 15 August 2018 at the conference room of the Palau International Coral Reef Center (PICRC) in Koror. Nine participants attended the meeting representing the Ministry of Natural Resources, Environment, and Tourism, National Environmental Protection Council, Information system support services, Ministry of Finance, PALARIS (Land and Resource Information), Climate Change Office / OPM, Office of Project Management, Bureau of Budget and Planning MoF, and Bureau of Agriculture.
The four-year regional Inform project (2017-2022) is managed through the Environmental Monitoring and Governance Programme of the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environmental Programme (SPREP) and 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 Inform project 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. National environmental data portals will be established in the project countries and managed through the ministry of environment.
Many participants found the data portal user-friendly. They can see practical uses of the data portal and reporting tool within their offices. Prior to the launch of the Inform Project, several projects and departments in Palau were planning to develop their own data portals, but now with the centralized platform provided through the Inform data portal, this could be an option that could help in creating a central data repository for Palau. Further consultations and discussions will continue among agencies and stakeholders to decide a way forward for the use of the data portal and reporting tool.
Senior Projects Manager with the Ministry of Natural Resources, Environment, and Tourism, Ms. Gwen Sisior said of the Inform project: “For me, the best part about this portal is being able to have a centralized place where I can get information I need to do all my reporting”.
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