International Connections

IABIN Gets $650K GEF Grant

The Global Environment Fund (GEF) has given IABIN a grant of $650,000 in response to the NBII’s proposal, “Building the Inter-American Biodiversity Information Network (IABIN).”  The proposal, which had been technically cleared by the GEF in early January, was funded for the full amount requested. The grant will be made by the World Bank. The Organization of American States (OAS), working under the direction and review of the IABIN Executive Committee, will oversee the activities funded by the grant.

IABIN is an initiative of the countries of the Americas to promote compatible means of collection, communication, and exchange of biodiversity information relevant to decision-making and education using the Internet.  It builds on existing national and regional information networking initiatives through incremental enhancement of those efforts to ensure hemisphere-wide interconnection and interoperability.

The grant will fund a year-long consultative process through which participants, in collaboration with the Clearing-House Mechanism of the Convention on Biological Diversity, will define the approaches and technologies needed to build the network that is the IABIN vision. A detailed plan for IABIN resulting from these consultations will then become part of a proposal to GEF for a full-size project grant, on the order of $4-5 million, for a 5-year effort to build IABIN.

Hemisphere Divided into Seven Subregions

The GEF grant will fund seven subregional consultants, who will determine the biodiversity resources available in his or her subregion; define the standards, formats, and protocols currently being used; determine the training and capacity-building requirements; and initiate partnerships with biodiversity information providers and users in the regions. Funds are also available to hold a workshop in each subregion to increase interaction among participants.

The seven subregional reports will then be integrated by an IABIN Regional Coordinator who will define the requirements and architecture for IABIN as a whole. The final report will be presented to the IABIN Council at its Third Meeting, tentatively scheduled for early 2003.

The Terms of Reference for the subregional consultants and the Regional Coordinator are available on the U.S. IABIN Web site, <www.iabin-us.org>. Selection of the consultants is expected in June 2002, with their work beginning shortly thereafter.

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