The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Yale University, World Health Organization (WHO), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Cornell University and several leading publishers are in the process of developing an Environmental portal, Online Access to Research in the Environment (OARE). The project will provide the developing world with free or reduced cost access to the scholarly environmental record of the worlds most prestigious scientific publishing houses through a secure portal on the world wide web.
Through OARE partnership, the worlds largest publishers are considering offering their resources to approximately one thousand environmental institutions in the least developed countries of Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and Eastern Europe.
Focused on the information needs of the expert environmental community in the developing world, OARE would leverage proven information and communication technologies, recent digitization of vast quantities of global scientific information, and a creative new public-private partnership to help reduce the North-South scientific gap and digital divide, objectives at the top of both the United Nations Agenda and Millennium Development Goals.
The OARE portal would be built upon and managed in close partnership with initiatives previously launched by WHO servicing the medical and health community (HINARI), and FAO servicing the agricultural community (AGORA).
Source:UNEP.
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