Article appearing in NBII Access, Newsletter of the National Biological Information Infrastructure, Fall 2000, Vol. 3, No. 4:

IABIN PROPOSALS HIGHLIGHT WORKING GROUPS MEETING

Developing a proposal for submission to the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) was the main agenda item at a meeting of two IABIN Technical Working Groups, held June 27-28, 2000, in Washington, DC.  The Organization of American States (OAS) hosted the joint meeting of the Financial Sustainability and Technical Work Plan working groups, which were established at the Miami IABIN Council Meeting to address proposals for funding network activities in 2000 and beyond.

 The Working Groups agreed to prepare a Project Development Facility (PDF) Block B proposal and submit it to the World Bank, one of the three Implementing Agencies for the GEF.  Target date for submission of the proposal is late 2000.  If awarded, the Block B grant will provide funds for development of a multi-million dollar IABIN project proposal to the GEF.  The PDF proposal requests $350,000 from the World Bank to fund an IABIN-wide consultative process to develop the full-size project proposal.  That consultative process will include a series of three regional workshops to perform a needs assessment for the hemisphere and an IABIN Council Meeting to address a strategic direction for IABIN.  Network needs and direction will need to be reflected in the full-size project proposal.

The United States announced at the Working Groups meeting that it had submitted a proposal to the U.S. Agency for International Development on behalf of IABIN. The requested funds will support a study on development of a long-term financial sustainability strategy for IABIN.

In August, 2000, the Alexander von Humboldt Institute in Colombia will submit a proposal to the Organization of American States FEMCIDI fund to extend to more countries some of the activities initiated as part of a metadata project funded by the World Bank in 1999.  The project proposed to the OAS, entitled “A Prototype Catalog Network for the Inter-American Biodiversity Information Network,” will provide training on metadata to participants from Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, and Jamaica.  It will also support training on and development of catalog nodes for biodiversity metadata in these countries. As additional nodes are developed, they will be linked to existing catalog systems in North and Central America, thereby creating a truly hemispheric electronic infrastructure for biodiversity information.

A USAID decision on the IABIN proposal is expected before the end of September; OAS FEMCIDI awards should be announced in late Fall.  A decision on the Block B PDF proposal could be made by the World Bank as soon as 30 days after submission of the proposal.

IABIN is an international initiative to promote greater coordination among Western Hemisphere countries in the collection, sharing, and use of biodiversity information.  Information on IABIN can be found at <www.iabin.org> (international site) and at <www.iabin-us.org>, the new URL for the U.S. site.

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