Background

The Regional Activity Centre for Information and Communication (INFO/RAC) was established in 2005 by the decision of the 14th Meeting of the Contracting Parties, thus substituting the Regional Activity Centre on Environment Remote Sensing (ERS/RAC) that was approved as MAP Regional Activity Centre by the 8th Meeting of the Contracting Parties in 1993.

INFO-RAC was mandated to establish a common information management infrastructure to facilitate and support information and communication activities across MAP.

From the mandate UN Environment Programme /MAP IG 19/8, the objective of INFO/RAC is to contribute to collecting and sharing information, raising public awareness and participation and enhancing decision making processes at the regional, national and local levels; while its mission, is in this context, is to provide adequate information and communication services and infrastructure technologies to Contracting Parties to implement Article 15 on public participation and Article 26 of the Barcelona Convention on reporting, as well as several articles related to reporting requirements under different Protocols, thus strengthening MAP Information management and communication capabilities. With a view to ensuring availability of coherent and scientifically sound environmental knowledge, INFO/RAC will strive for close cooperation with other key environment institutions and international bodies working on environmental data and information management, to progressively move towards a Shared Environmental Information System (SEIS).