Detailed country consultation: In an initial stage, countries will be engaged to foster support from government agencies, establish project focal points, identify and inform relevant stakeholders and make arrangements for collaboration, including initial country visits aimed at fact finding and refining priorities to focus on.
Stocktaking of existing national capabilities and identification of existing environmental monitoring networks, environmental data and information and any current use of in-situ as well as remote sensing and geographical information systems. This will be followed by a more detailed assessment of country capacities and needs which will be captured in short assessment reports. These reports will be developed both in English and in Russian, and shared with national project partners. Following an analysis of the results of each needs assessment and of identified priorities, UN Environment and the countries will agree on the modalities for subsequent project interventions, including on type of infrastructure support to be provided, groups to be targeted through capacity building activities, and on priority knowledge products to be developed under the overall scope of the project (i.e. digitized Environmental Atlases, websites infrastructure, databases, technical guidance manuals and reference materials).