The 21st to the 23rd of October 2014 a workshop on data sharing was held at the Giraffe Ocean View Hotel in Dar es Salaam. It was organized by NEMC Tanzania in collaboration with the Norwegian Environment Agency. A representative from the Environmental Protection Agency in Ghana also contributed to the workshop. The activity was funded by the Norwegian program Oil for Development.
My role in this workshop was to contribute to this process throughout facilitation of discussions, presentations and dialogue with the participants. The participants were representatives from owners and users of environmental data in Tanzania. The workshop was funded by the Norwegian Oil for Development initiative.
This blog posting has been written to make information about the process available for the workshop participants as well as prospective stakeholders, researchers and for our own reference on the process.
You will find the workshop report attached as well as the executive summary in the distributed report.
Workshop report
A workshop report has been made and distributed to the participants. The workshop report and some of the presentations can be downloaded here:
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Executive summary
The purpose of the workshop was to raise awareness on environmental data management and discuss a way forward towards national level coordination of environmental data and data management.
The workshop participants all represented important owners and managers of environmental data in Tanzania. The dialogue and presentations at the workshop pointed to the importance of establishing standards and procedures for sharing environmental information in Tanzania. Currently the lack of afore mentioned has negative implications on the following:
- coordinated efforts towards cross sector inventories of environmental assets;
- environmental impact assessments of various sizes;
- the establishment and continuous maintenance of emergency response systems;
- other efforts related to collection, storing and dissemination of environmental information.
The workshop advice was that the establishment of an Environmental Information Network (EIN) headed by NEMC and supported by the stakeholders represents a rational way forward. A Memorandum of Understanding for an EIN was discussed. NEMC has a position to take the lead in bringing this process forward.
The report sums up the workshop. The author also gives advice for the process towards an environmental information network in Tanzania for the purpose of promoting a knowledge based management of the environment.
Comments welcome!
Comments on the report and the process in general are welcome. Please use the form below.