Toolkit: suggestions to improve

The CEPA toolkit has received a warm welcome from many sides. And users sent us a range of good suggestions. As the website only contains the pre-publication version, I learned that at least two things can be done to make sure the printed version has an optimal impact:
1. The CD-Rom to be influded with the publication, could be improved so that people do not have to down load or scroll down a whole pdf file, but instead, access each checklist , fact sheet or example through only one or two clicks. This will be at the same time an improvement for the website.
2. The CEPA toolkit website has very useful additional and complimentary information on CEPA: glossaries, links, resources, power points, videos etc. It should be expanded in a way that people from all over the world can upload their information.

The toolkit was discussed in a meeting of the CEPA Informal Advisory Committee to the CBD Executive Secretary during the SBSTTA meeting in Paris. Quotes from interventions of the IAC members illustrate the above conclusions:
“The CEPA toolkit is very comprehensive; it is the first concrete realization of our work program, other activities should build on it.”
“I wish you could upload our latest CEPA project on the website.”
“As in our side of the world internet access is a real problem, it took me one minute to open the site and two and half hours to download the pdfs”.

Earlier in the week the CEPA toolkit was discussed in the first meeting of the chairs of the SBSTTAs of all biodiversity related conventions. The meeting recognized the importance of education, communication and dissemination of information to the larger public. The toolkit was presented and participants stressed the impact it would have if all the conventions made use of it. A short summary of the toolkit will be incorporated into the minutes of the meeting, including links to the toolkit itself.

The website statistics indicate that while 2 gigabyte (of the toolkit) was downloaded on May 5, in June that was 2,9 gigabyte. In both months an average of 34 unique visitors a day opened an average of 2 pages. The videos, power points, links and other resources were more popular in June than in May.