State of Environment Report will assist to build a strong foundation for better data management
Vanuatu is preparing a State of Environment Report to help guide future decision making.
A strong foundation to this is the information and data from a wide range of sectors and stakeholders. A National Stakeholders Inform Project workshop was held in Vanuatu last month to help build this foundation.
Bringing together 40 participants, the event was held by the Vanuatu Department of Environmental Protection and Conservation, and the regional Inform project of the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP).
“It is vital that we work with our stakeholders to develop a solid State of Environment Report which will act as the compass to steer us towards a sustainable Vanuatu environment through sound and informed decision making,” said Esline Garaebiti, the Director-General of the Ministry of Climate Change.
“It is the data collected from across the range of sectors that will contribute greatly to our State of Environment Report. We rely heavily on the availability of data and information from across our government agencies and as such, we need continued collection and storage of quality data in our national environment portal.”
The Vanuatu national environment portal that stores such data from different government agencies is part of the Inform Project that is funded by the Global Environment Facility, implemented by the UN Environment and executed by SPREP.
Representing SPREP remotely from Apia, Samoa, was Peter McDonald, Environmental Monitoring and Reporting Specialist. He provided an overview of the Data Portal and how best to use and input environment information and data into the repository, made accessible to all.
“The meeting with Vanuatu National Stakeholders was a way for us to set the scene and showcase how the Inform project is able to assist national and regional needs in environmental reporting,” said Mr McDonald.
“We were pleased with the enthusiastic response to the Portal and look forward to working with stakeholders across Vanuatu to build content in their national data portal. Information is an important resource which we need to ensure is accessible, accurate, and available to those who need it such as key decision-makers.”
“The Inform project aims to build national and regional capacity to build a strong foundation for better data management and ensure the better use of data and information our countries work hard to collect.”
The Inform project is establishing national environment data portals in 14 Pacific island countries including the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Republic of Marshall Islands, Papua New Guinea, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. The Inform project is based on SPREP’s Environmental Monitoring and Governance Programme.
