The South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) in partnership with African Participants of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) are planning to hold a meeting to implement an innovative and collaborative project aimed at ensuring relevant biodiversity information is available to support efficient policy formulation and decision-making in Africa.
The project, entitled, Mobilizing Africa’s policy and decision-making relevant biodiversity data, is generously funded by the JRS Biodiversity Foundation.
The overarching aim of the project is to develop and implement a strategy for mobilizing African biodiversity data while strengthening regional collaboration and capacity in biodiversity informatics. The strategy will set priorities for capturing, digitizing and publishing biodiversity data with a view to reinforcing the knowledge base on which policies and decisions concerning biodiversity are made.
To this end, delegates to the workshop in Pretoria will be asked to:
i) Decide what biodiversity data is required for making evidence-based policies and decisions in their respective countries;
ii) Map institutional landscapes to determine the significant sources and repositories of required biodiversity data;
iii) Determine the current availability and accessibility of required biodiversity data;
iv) Set priorities for the mobilization (collection, digitization and publication) of required biodiversity data; and
v) Identify regional capacity constraints in biodiversity informatics and, accordingly, agree on the type of training to be provided at subsequent workshops.