The need for improved national forestry information services has been identified by countries in the region and elaborated in a workshop held in Pretoria 23-27 October 2000. The workshop was supported and coordinated by Swedish aid assistance (Sida) and included participants from Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe. The workshop concluded that national development of forestry information services in support of policy development was important and include the following agenda items:
1. Constitution of a forestry information service at the national level;
2. Development of national forestry information system to support organization, analysis and dissemination of forest and forestry information;
3. Improving collection of policy-relevant forestry information.
The current workshop intended to continue these conceptual findings and work with implementation of information service functions. The workshop was funded by FAO through a Swedish trust fund project aimed specifically to capacity building within forest resources assessment.
Support to national capacity building is central to FAO and its Forest Resources Assessment Programme (FRA). Furthermore, improved information and knowledge management, in support of sustainable forest management, has been identified as high priorities in the FAO Forestry Strategy. The proposed workshop is in line with FAO's endeavour to a better understanding of forest and forestry processes, and will support national and international efforts towards sustainable forestry.
The workshop was held close to the end of FAO's Global Forest Resources Assessment 2000 (FRA 2000), and provided an excellent opportunity to follow-up the assessment for the participating countries.
Preparations for the workshop included development of a prototype information system following the identified needs in South Africa. The prototype was developed by FAO in collaboration with Department of Water Affairs and Forestry of South Africa and served as input to the workshop. Inputs to the workshop was also provided by FAO, through its development of a Global Forest Survey. Concepts and results from methodology development and pilot projects served as a starting points for the workshop discussions on improved collection of policy-related forestry information.
The workshop had the following objectives:
· to evaluate and provide feedback to FAO's Global Forest Resources Assessment 2000 (FRA 2000) for the participating countries;
· to test and evaluate a prototype web-based information system for national forestry information, and propose continued activities in this field;
· to make recommendations to FAO's proposed Global Forest Survey in support of national forestry programmes.
