Eye On:
USAID Launches GeoExplorer: Connecting Natural Resource Management Activities, Practitioners, and Communities
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
GeoExplorer was designed to foster knowledge sharing among and between practitioners, program managers, and researchers. USAID expects the tool to help avoid cases both of repeating past mistakes and reinventing the wheel, serve as a guide for study trips to the field, build community exchanges, and foster networking. It is built on ArcGIS architecture that USAID hopes will allow for continual expansion, particularly through the addition of GIS layers that can empower users with greater search options and tools for cross-project analytic analyses.
All activities on GeoExplorer are directly uploaded by users and USAID funding is not a requirement for inclusion. A FRAMEweb account (free) is all that is needed to sign-up and start adding your own projects. USAID hopes to make GeoExplorer available to host other NRM sub-sectors and even non-NRM activities in the future.
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natural resources
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2 comments:
According to the search function, there is only one program represented on this map that integrates NRM with health (a program that works with traditional healers). But those results may be skewed by the fact that programs can only choose one development topic/theme that "best" represents the program's focus. While the instructions acknowledge this is a limitation, it reinforces the traditional development stovepipes that imperil truly integrated work.
Hi Meaghan. Thanks for the comment.
We acknowledge that being limited to choose one sub-sector to represent a development activity is extremely limiting and, as you site, only aids in the traditional stove-piping of development work.
Therefore, we are working on making this field multi-select to better represent activities that are implementing integrated and cross cutting approaches. It should be complete in the next few weeks.
In the meantime we encourage members of the NRM community to contribute their activities. If you have NRM and health activities please share them with the rest of the community!
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