Figure 2. Land use map of Jinja sheet 1:250,000 October 2003
Map production: Uganda EIN (Department of Forestry)
districts at the 1:50,000 scale. Figures 2 and 3 show the as a whole, still has a lot to do in bringing this category of
land use information for the Jinja map sheet and Jinja people together to enlist their support.
district respectively. Agreeing on standards for geo-cod-
ing, referencing, file formats, EIS equipment, and data The successes of the horizontal EIN need to be docu-
collection methodologies made it easier to exchange mented, technical guidelines published for reference
data between institutions for analysis at different levels. and products showcased to advertise the network. Ad-
Other activities undertaken included rehabilitation of ditionally, the number of participating institutions needs
weather stations, reconstruction and expansion of the ge- to be expanded so as to benefit from the different insti-
odetic network and strengthening the use of the Internet. tutional data types. While a scientific evaluation of the
impact of the EIN has never been carried out, anecdotal
The horizontal EIN has been relatively successful in ad- evidence points to a general improvement in the overall
dressing technical network issues such as standardisa- management and availability of key environmental da-
tion and sharing of data, but a lot still remains to be done tasets and their use in environment management. This
in ensuring networking from an organisational or policy is further borne out by the fact that UNEP modelled its
level. In most cases the points of contact for key data sets Africa-wide EIN along the lines of the Uganda EIN, and
in certain institutions are individuals, other than organi- by countries like Ethiopia that have adapted the concept
sational units. This creates a problem of continuity. The to their local situation (UNEP/NEMA/EPA 2005). How-
support of the policy makers is critical in ensuring long- ever, this success is not so evident at the vertical level and
term sustainability of the network. To this end, the EIN, this needs attention.
The Uganda Case Study 11
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