Projects & Activities

Sustainable tourism incorporates positive economic, socio-cultural, environmental considerations and impacts, both during planning and implementation. Tourism is the largest industry sector supporting protected areas, and the biggest service industry around the world. It is estimated that nearly 70 million new jobs will be created as a result of tourism industry over the next 10 years (WTTC 2011).

Over the years GRID-Arendal has been working on a range of project activities in Africa. Current activities relate to skills sharing and environmental knowledge generation through assessment and reporting. Falling under the Capacity Building and Assessment Programme of GRID-Arendal, Africa activities focus on providing science-based environmental information for resource management and decision-making.

Fredskorpset (FK Norway) is an exchange programme supported by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs that promotes mutual capacity building and ‘partnerships for development’ as a way to strengthen the understanding between the North and the South. The programme supports GRID Arendal’s vision of capacity-building and is carried out with UNEP’s support as it contributes to the Bali Strategic Plan for Technology Support and Capacity Building. The exchange strengthens the expertise of GRID-Arendal and of collaborating partner institutions in addressing international environmental issues.

GRID-Arendal completed its third staff exchange programme in 2012.

The Mitigation and Adaptation Information Network (MAIN) for sustainable communities is an Information and Communication Technology (ICT)-based initiative designed to enable the sharing of knowledge and experience for purposes of promoting innovation and capacity building in local green economy activities. In short, MAIN is a communications and learning platform by and for local communities and practitioners.

In EECCA GRID-Arendal continues to build on long-standing interactions with a range of countries and the in-depth understanding of the region acquired by staff and key partners over the past two decades. The primary rationale for GRID-Arendal's engagement continues to be its contribution to strengthening the capacity of national institutions in environmental information management, with the aim of making reliable, accurate and up-to-date information easily accessible to a broad range of stakeholders in the region and beyond. 
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