Rhoda Tumusiime

African Union Commission Commissioner for the Department
of Rural Economy and Agriculture (DREA)

It is with deep honor and profound appreciation that I write this forward to signal the publication of the first newsletter by AMESD on monitoring of the African environment. Africa's environment has been subjected to severe stresses over the years, with major ecological complexes suffering huge reverses as a result. From forests and woodlands, marine and coastal resources, land and fresh-water, biodiversity and the atmosphere, the changes have been growing steadily and adversely. And while information on these perceptible declines have been building up, the capacity of institutional and development structures in Africa have not readily assimilated the relevant genres for purposes of engendering sustainable economic renewal of African states.

At no time in history has Africa been deluged with so much information and used very little of it. Yet, this has to change, and it has to change qualitatively, if the harnessing of vital environmental information is to be meaningfully geared to achieving sustainable development. Africa has to make earnest moves to systematically build the requisite capacities to accommodate, process, utilize, and integrate environmental data not only with a view to monitoring the environment, but also to add value to planning models and development frameworks. It is in this context that my Department of Rural Economy and agriculture, within the African Union Commission, has taken the task of coordinating the AMESD programme in cooperation with the European Union, which funds the project, the ACP Secretariat and five major African RECs. In a recently concluded meeting of African Ministers of Environment (AMCEN) held in Bamako, Mali, from 20-25 June, 2010, a key decision was passed on AMESD that urged Member States to institutionalize the use of climate-related information to build- resilience and adaptation to climate change in national, sub-regional, and regional planning and development endeavors. This is the first time that the visibility of the programme has been accorded ministerial attention at the continental level. The critical step now is to facilitate the technologization of African institutional structures so as to enhance their capacity to absorb and utilize relevant earth observation data in pursuit of sustainable development.

It is my belief that this brief will help readers appreciate the policy and developmental significance of the AMESD programme being led by the African Union Commission.