The Secretary of State for Forestry and Environment, Hon. Edward D. Singhateh, has revealed that The Gambia has been selected to participate in the Africa Environment Information Network (AEIN) initiative.
He added that the programme is a capacity building one and is aimed at enhancing access to information and knowledge to support the management of Africa’s environmental resources as assets for sustainable development.

Secy Singhateh made this disclosure at the opening ceremony of a two-day workshop held recently at the Corinthia Atlantic Hotel in Banjul.

According to him, the key objective of AEIN is to build capacity for establishing the essential data foundation needed to support country-level sustainable development initiatives, focussing on the environmental aspect. The AEIN concept, he went on, was developed by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in response to political and technical needs expressed by the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) at a special session held in October 2001.