There is a need to have environmental and other data centrally stored and shared throughout the Pacific Island region. The Inform project—implemented by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP)—is addressing this need by creating national data portals in 14 countries, and a regional data portal.
The most recent portal was created and demonstrated in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea on23 May 2018 with stakeholders from the Conservation and Environment Protection Authority (CEPA), government ministries, non-governmental organizations, the national university, and other agencies.
“CEPA is very enthusiastic about the new data portal in that it supports the implementation of Multilateral Environment Agreements (MEAs), and the drafting of the first State of Environment Report for Papua New Guinea, which is clearly the way forward for reporting on MEAs and environmental Sustainable Development Goals,” said Gunther Joku, Managing Director of CEPA.
Environmental representatives in Papua New Guinea learn how to use the country’s national data portal. Photo credit: Paul Anderson/SPREP.
The Conservation and Environment Protection Authority (CEPA, formerly the Department of Environment and Conservation) will manage the portal and grant users access to facilitate data uploaded and shared.
During the 18 – 24 May mission, SPREP’s Inform project team also visited Kavieng on the New Ireland Province to demonstrate the portal and explain how it can consolidate reporting for State of Environment (SoE) reports, the Aichi Targets of the Convention of Biological Diversity, the Sustainable Development Goals, the Samoa Pathway, and National Sustainable Development Plans. The team also provided hands-on training to CEPA staff, and projects administered and implemented by the Authority, on the use of the portal and the indicator reporting tool.
The Global Environment Facility funds the Inform project, and the European Union-funded ‘African Caribbean Pacific Multilateral Environment Agreement 2' Project supports the development of SoE Reports and National Environmental Management Strategies.
These projects, implemented through UN Environment and executed by SPREP, complement each other by taking integrated approaches to key activities, including the collection and collation of data to assist Papua New Guinea in completing its first SoE Report.
“The Inform project addresses a gap that is, unfortunately, systemic across the region, and by strengthening the management of environmental data, over-burdened Environment staff are able to better monitor and track the state of the environment and ultimately alleviate the burden of reporting to the various Multilateral Environment Agreements they are party to,” said Sela Soakai-Simamao, Inform Project Finance and Technical Assistant.
The four-year Inform project is also establishing national data portals in the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. A regional portal will be created for the partner countries to access and share environmental data.
To learn more about the Inform project, please visit http://www.sprep.org/inform/home 
To learn more about the ACP MEA project, please visit http://www.sprep.org/Projects/acp-meas-project