Web and Advisory Services- BSGN: The Environmenal Information Portal

The Best Practices and Success Stories Global Network (BSGN) is UNEP's one-stop-shop for environmental Best Practices and Success Stories. BSGN seeks to enhance the visibility of and raise awareness about environmentally sound practices and about the successful implementation of environmental initiatives of the global community in general, and UNEP in particular.

It is a network of partners that will help to encourage knowledge sharing and promote replication of successful practices wherever possible. BSGN is a UNEP-wide service showcasing the impacts of its work, that of its collaborators, and the global public towards poverty alleviation, sustainable development, and environmental protection.

Situation
Alongside of facilitating the mission to enable people throughout the world improve quality of life by sharing knowledge and creating partnerships in caring for the environment, the implementers of the initiative envision the empowering of people through the provision of information on environmentally sound practices for poverty alleviation and sustainable development. Hence, with the development of BSGN, UNEP would add to her assets a powerful tool for facilitating information exchange on one hand, and gathering vital data to support efforts in institution building on the other.

Building upon several UNEP, and UNEP-affiliated, activities in the field of environmental best practices and success stories, this initiative explored ways to:

· Define the scope of coverage of environmental themes.
· Develop the format of reporting best practices and success stories in a manner considerably representative of the requirements of all stakeholders involved.
· Design the process of collecting and vetting the submission covering the entire spectrum of environmental themes, globally.
· Develop and implement an ICT tool, the BSGN Web site, to facilitate the collection, storage and dissemination of approved submission, as well as, for purpose of establishing global coverage in a cost effective manner.

Solution
RSA worked very closely with stakeholders from all of UNEP's Divisions to combine their understanding of environmantal information with RSA's understanding of the possibilities and limitations of Internet technologies.

The scope of the project included everything from concept actulalization and information design, to the development of the web site and the database. RSA's decision on the use of Microsoft's products was based on the developing a powerful, scalable, agile, and robust solution while also reducing total cost of ownership of the same.

The concept for the user interface was based on the providing easy navigation to the users. Its was imperative that users would be able to search for information with as few clicks as possbile. As such, the site is actually a search engine, with a complelling user interface.

Benefits
· The web site is visually appealing, has an easy to follow navigation structure, and presents information without overwhelming the user.

· The data services of the solution can syndicate information to other sites, or even manage other simillar schemes.

· The solution is flexible enough to grow with the needs of the users based on the scalability of the database.

For More Information
The Project Coordinator
Best Practices & Success Stories Global Network
Division of Environmental Policy Implementation
United Nations Environmental Programme
P O Box 30552, Nairobi, Kenya

Phone: +254 2 624582/623261
Fax: +254 2 624249
email: info.bsgn@unep.org
URL: www.unep.org/bsgn