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TRIP REPORT USAID Southern Africa Partners: MELISSA and EIS Pretoria May 16, 1997 Jeffrey A. Cochrane July 24, 1997 As part of a larger tour of Southern Africa, a special visit was paid to the offices of two USAID partner programs in Pretoria. These are the Program on Environmental Information Systems in Southern Africa (EIS) and the program for Managing the Environment Locally in Sub-Saharan Africa (MELISSA). Both the AfricaLink Advisor from Washington and the SANGONeT Help Desk Coordinator, Mr. Na'eem Jeenah, traveled from Johannesburg to Pretoria for the meeting. The objective of the EIS program, as stated in their Web site (http://www.grida.no/eis-ssa/), "… is to promote the implementation of effective environmental information systems (EIS) to support the process of sustainable development in sub-Saharan Africa. The Program supports African countries as they assess their priority needs in terms of environment and land information systems, and analyze the technical, institutional, legal and economic issues hampering their possibilities of meeting these needs. It assists them in finding adequate, sustainable and long-term solutions to deal with these issues." MELISSA is a more recently organized project described as aiming to assist with environmental planning in Africa at the level of local governments. "MELISSA is a joint initiative of the World Bank and the European Union to promote and facilitate local environmental planning and management in Sub Saharan Africa… support is to be provided to decentralized communities in preparing, implementing and monitoring their own Local Environmental Action Plans (LEAPs)… MELISSA will work to bring together professional and decision makers interested in local environmental management in a network." (From EIS News, March 1997, p. 3.) The AfricaLink team briefed MELISSA and EIS Program staff on the regional and continent-wide activities of AfricaLink. The team also listened to descriptions of the status and work of the MELISSA and EIS programs. Discussions focused on ways the AfricaLink Help Desks might be used by MELISSA and EIS in furthering their various objectives. The EIS Program tends to work with national institutions and international PVOs that are already well connected to the Internet. EIS Program staff suggested there might be greater scope for collaboration in assisting MELISSA partners, which are likely to be small civic organizations and local governments. It was explained that MELISSA staff should not hesitate to take the initiative in requesting assistance from AfricaLink for the development of a basic connectivity program, conducting training courses, or providing general information about the very practical aspects of the Internet for small organizations in Africa. MELISSA staff were encouraged to call upon Mr. Jeenah of SANGONeT for consultations as needed. Persons Visited Program on Environment Information Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa, A World Bank Initiative, c/o CSIR Environmentek, P.O. Box 395, Pretoria 0001, South Africa, tel +27.12.841.2070, fax. +27.12.841.3158 Koffi Kouakou, Program Coordinator, kkouakou@csir.co.za Managing the Environment Locally in Sub-Saharan Africa (MELISSA), PO Box 395, Pretoria 0001, +27.12.841.2432 Ousseynou Eddje Diop, Project Coordinator, odiop@csir.co.za or odiop@worldbank.org

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