The fith session of the Intergovernmental Committee for GOOS (I-GOOS) (Paris, June 2001) decided that given the rapid growth of GOOS Regional Alliances (GRAs) it was necessary to bring all the regional groups together regularly so as to benefit from each other's archievements, to promulgate "best practice", to create a sense of community between GRAs, and to ensure an harmonious development of GOOS at the global level. The First Regional GOOS Forum was the mechanism chosen to archieve these goals. In addition it offered an opportunity to establish benchmarks by sharing experience, assessing progress, and identifying gaps.The venue and timing of the Forum (Athens, Greece, 2-6 December 2002) were chosen to capitalize on the fact that from 3-5 December 2002, EuroGOOS was holding its third Conference on Operational Oceanography, which would give all of the other GRAs a chance to see the full extent to EuroGOOS's activities.To Stimulate the interchange of ideas, each GRA provided details about itself and its activities on a standard from ( the "Regional Template"). The various needs of the Gras fell into six main catagories: (i) infrastructure; (ii) making observations (monitoring); (iii) data and information access, management, communication and exchange; (iv) data analysis, assimilation, modelling and product development; (v) awarness raising; and (vi) funding. It was agreed that these needs would be drawn to the attention of the sixth session of I-GOOS (Paris, France, 10-14 March 2003), and that GRAs from the industrial world would draw the needs of the less developed regions to the attention of their supporting agencies, as a means of stimulating technology transfer and capacity building initiatives on a bilateral basis.Participants agreed to work together towards the development of a proposal to the European Commission (EC's) sixth Framework Programme (FP6) with the goal of strengthening the network of GRAs as a step towards building a fully operational global system. |
