The Abu Dhabi Global Environmental Data Initiative, AGEDI, has launched the Indicator Reporting Information System, IRIS, during the UN Global Science-Policy-Business Forum on the Environment held recently in Nairobi, Kenya.

The launch of IRIS follows a successful collaboration between Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi, EAD, and UN Environment. IRIS is an enterprise web application intended for organisations involved in regular environmental status and performance reporting. It is a targeted response to a set of widespread, real world challenges faced by many organisations across the world. Its main aims are to reduce the institutional burden associated with recurring report production and to provide timelier and more complete information for decision makers; in all tiers of Governance – local to global develop; to develop institutional capacity; and be a practical, durable and globally applicable solution.

Ahmed Baharoon, AGEDI’s Acting Director, said, "We are very proud to be able to show our stakeholders the result of the hard work between the AGEDI implementation partners to reach the point where IRIS is ready to be launched. We look forward to collaborating with UN Environment even closer in 2018 to deliver IRIS to its users."

The path forward includes further strengthening the software to ensure its long-term durability; a regional capacity-building workshop for West Asia will be held in Abu Dhabi in Q2 of 2018, as well as the deployment of IRIS in a first batch of interested countries from across the globe.

"We look at 2018 with great excitement and anticipation; a substantial number of countries have expressed interest to have the IRIS deployed within their ministries or institutions responsible for environmental reporting. UN Environment will strive to meet this demand and to demonstrate the significant value add that IRIS represents in the global reporting ecosystem," said Dr. Jian Liu, Chief Scientist at UN Environment.