International Waters learning Exchange & Resource Network

Component A: Information Sharing

Component A: Information Sharing

Lead IA: United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP)

To facilitate the integration, exchange and accessibility of data and information among GEF IW projects, their partners and stakeholders.

SCENARIOS

Baseline: Project Web sites and ICT tools, where they exist, are assembled in a piecemeal fashion, difficult to adapt to other projects and disconnected from the GEF’s overall information management systems. Valuable external information to support priority TWM needs is largely unknown or inaccessible to those participating in GEF IW projects.

GEF IW:LEARN Alternative: All GEF IW project Web sites promote clarity, transparency, understanding and involvement in TWM in their geographic areas. Sites interconnect with GEF information management systems to increase information discovery and access across projects, agencies and stakeholders. Where one project designs an ICT tool to benefit TWM, IW:LEARN assists in development, transfer and replication of that solution to meet that and other projects’ TWM needs. Participating countries leverage one another’s water data, documents and expertise as well as ICT tools to improve adaptive management of their respective transboundary ecosystems, increasing stakeholders’ awareness and participation and promoting mutual understanding and collaborative environmental problem-solving.

OUTCOMES

TWM improved across GEF IW project areas through projects’ and stakeholders’ access to TWM data and information from across the GEF IW portfolio and its partners.

OUTPUTS/ACTIVITIES

By 2008, >75% of projects use the GEF’s comprehensive IW Information Management System (“IW-IMS” including helpdesk) and >50% of its users obtain needed TWM data, information and/or tools; stakeholders increasingly use IWRC to obtain project data and information.