Eye on Global Network of Networks
There is significant interest in the Eye on Earth community to explore further alignment of various existing and planned local, national, regional and global networks. Information and communication technologies, as well as the social networking and crowd-sourcing capabilities that these facilitate, are recognised as key to support other environmental and socio-economic information and knowledge. The current challenge is that many of these networks which directly or indirectly address environmental issues are not connected. The aim of this Special Initiative is to link these networks to promote the availability of environmental information at a global to local level and support this by establishing strong institutional arrangements and synergies that currently exist or are planned. This includes programmes such as UNEP-Live and the National Reporting Toolkit (NRT).
There is also interest in strengthening collaboration and alignment with GEO/GEOSS, INSPIRE, EIONET, UNEP-Live, AGEDI, UNSDI, GGIM, GSDI, GBIF, GeoSur, Global Pulse and other such global intergovernmental and multi-stakeholder initiatives.
In the short-term: UNEP-Live and in particular its National Reporting Toolkit (NRT) component. Reporting under the Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) (support to InforMEA)
- In the medium-term: GNON must demonstrate how it can support all the SIs and identify desirable actions and projects to address the gaps and needs identified in the network overview. For demonstration purposes, activities could be focused on a few specific areas, e.g., the Access for All (A4A) SI, Disaster Management SI and Water Security SI.
- In the long term: GNON should deliver actual support and value added to all the thematic SIs, regional Environmental Information Networks (EIN) and link to communities of practices in related geosciences, earth observation and assessment areas.
Nearly 70 stakeholders have engaged this Special Initiative. They include governmental organizations, NGOs, private firms and other interested organizations. Nearly seventy stakeholders have engaged in this Special Initiative.
Stakeholders include: AGEDI, UNEP, European Environment Agency (EEA), CSIRO,
Latin American Development Bank, IEEE, United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), Environmental Systems Research Institute (Esri), South African Environmental Observation Network (SAEON).
These institutions and individuals are all engaged on a regular basis through stakeholder calls as well as face to face meetings to discuss and move forward on common shared projects and issues within the initiative.
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