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Mission Statements

UNEP's Division of Early Warning and Assessment (DEWA)

"To provide the world community with improved access to meaningful environmental data and information, and to help increase the capacity of governments to use environmental information for decision making and action planning for sustainable human development."

GRID

"To help bridge the gap between the scientific understanding of earth processes and sound management of the environment at national, regional, and global levels."

GRID-Sioux Falls

"To assist UNEP and its partners by contributing environmental data and information, as well as methodological techniques for handling such data, to enhance the scientific basis for decision making and help advance sustainable development initiatives."

Goal: To provide scientific basis for decision making.

Objectives: GRID-Sioux Falls has the following specific objectives:

  • Provide 'services' and 'produce data and information products' to support decision making;
  • Facilitate access to and assist in validation of geographic data sets of developing countries for he North American global change research community;
  • Provide access to geographic data sets developed by North American agencies by making them available through the GRID network;
  • Catalyze development of some key global and regional data sets by cooperating with relevant agencies;
  • Provide information about spatial data handling , communication, networking technologies, and data policies regarding commercial data sets to developing countries and other UN agencies;
  • Facilitate technology transfer to developing countries in cooperation with appropriate North American agencies and provide input to North American agencies about the science and technology needs of developing countries; and
  • Assist other GRID nodes in technical issues to maintain a leadership role of GRID within the UN system.