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Strengthening access to information on environment and sustainable development for key users and the general public by developing innovative e-learning methods and tools for the WSIS PrepCom-2 (17-25 February 2005, Geneva)

Small Grant

Keywords

Databases - Geographical Tools - Information and communication technologies - Sustainable Development

Summary

Access, use and sharing of information and knowledge are keywords of the Declaration of Principles and the Plan of Action adopted at the World Summit on the Information Society in December 2003 in Geneva (WSIS Phase I). WSIS Phase II in November 2005 in Tunis is recognized to be the platform for the development of concrete measures for the implementation of the WSIS Geneva 2003 Plan of Action.

Following the WSIS call for the development of pilot projects in education and capacity building, the proposed project aims to develop a concrete example of an ICT application for the next WSIS Phase II Preparatory Committee in Geneva (PrepCom-2, 17-25 February 2005). The objective of the project is to demonstrate how information and communication technologies (ICTs) can improve the accessibility to data and information on environment / sustainable development (SD) for the general public by using innovative e-learning methods and tools. The capacity building material will be developed around the existing UNEP GEO Data Portal. It will be distributed, tested and discussed at the PrepCom-2 meeting, and it will also be re-used in UNEP and University of Geneva activities.

The project will draw on the experience of two partners working in the field of environment / SD and ICTs:

The UNEP Global Environment Outlook (GEO) is a project initiated in response to the environmental reporting requirements of Agenda 21 and to a UNEP Governing Council decision of May 1995 which requested the production of a new comprehensive global state of the environment report. Three global reports, several regional and national reports as well as educational and technical products have been published since 1997 (http://www.grid.unep.ch/geo/).

The UniGe Sustainability and public or private environmental management (SUPPREM) is one of the Swiss Virtual Campus (SVC) programs. Its objective is to produce a bundle of inter-disciplinary web-based teaching modules oriented toward sustainability and environmental management. Funded from 2001 to 2003 by the SVC, it is one the two SVC...

The grant provided by the GIAN for this project totals SFr 41,900

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Project Team

Ms Nicole Efrancey , Principal Member, High Commercial Studies , University of Geneva (Unige) .

Prof. Alain Haurie , Principal Member, High Commercial Studies , University of Geneva (Unige) .