ENVIRONMENTAL CONVENTIONS
Many organisations do not "know what they know." Such a situation can often lead to duplication of effort throughout an organisation. Thus, they must ask themselves two important questions:
There are no right or wrong answers to these questions. Solutions will depend upon several factors such as the type of organisation, its culture and its needs. Nevertheless, effective management of knowledge focuses on solutions that encompass the entire system: organisation, people and technology.
Most sustainable development decisions are inherently multidisciplinary or cross-sector, because they require trade-offs between conflicting goals of different sectors. However, most natural resource development agencies are single-sector oriented. Geographic Information System (GIS) technology can help establish cross-sector communication - not only by providing very powerful tools for storage and analysis of multisector spatial and statistical data but also by integrating databases of different sectors in the same format, structure and map projection in the GIS system. The importance of this integrated approach to development and management of natural resources has been emphasised in many international fora on sustainable development.
HEAT offers a wide range of services in knowledge management and geographic information systems to support development organisations in their daily operations. HEAT has implemented many information systems. Some examples are given below.