In May 1989, at the Governing Council of United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Norwegian Minister of the Environment announced that Norway, as a concrete follow-up to the recommendations of the World Commission on Environment and Development, was ready to support the establishment of a GRID (Global Resource Information Database) centre in Arendal, Norway. A project agreement was signed between UNEP and the Norwegian Ministry of the Environment in Arendal on August 22, 1989, for the establishment and operation of GRID-Arendal. GRID-Arendal is established as a foundation in accordance with Norwegian legislation. In 2001 GRID-Arendal was designated an official UNEP Centre.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between UNEP and the Norwegian Ministry of
Environment on the operations of GRID-Arendal, signed in January 2005, was extended for two years in September 2009 (see addendum 1).
Dialogue between UNEP and the Government of Norway, Ministry of the Environment for the above extension confirmed that the strategy should be founded on GRID-Arendal’s overarching role to support UNEP with its key communications services in visualizing scientific data and environmental information, outreach and capacity building, targeting different groups, and innovatively applying communication tools and training techniques.
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