Africa Environment Outlook is the first comprehensive integrated report on the African environment. The AEO assessment methodology is derived from UNEP's cutting edge Global Environment Outlook (GEO) Process. [Full Report in HTML]

1. What is happening to the environment?
2. Why is it happening?
3. Why is the impact?
4. What can we do and what are we doing about it?
5. What will happen if we don’t act now?

It brings together information and insight that is usually dispersed across disciplines and institutions. It is a tool to aid communication between science and policy. Africa Environment Outlook aims to provide comprehensive, credible environmental information in a way that is relevant to policy making. The structure, which combines comprehensive environmental information with policy analysis, within an overall context of socio-economic conditions and development imperatives, is thus ideally suited to this purpose. It provides recommendations for international cooperation and action and thus can be used by subregional organizations and national environment departments in developing national policies and international agreements.

The AEO report responds directly to Agenda 21, Chapter 40, which states:"

While considerable data already exist, as the various sectoral chapters of Agenda 21 indicate, more and different types of data need to be collected, at the local, provincial, national and international levels, indicating the status and trends of the planet’s ecosystem, natural resource, pollution and socioeconomic variables.

The gap in the availability, quality, coherence, standardization and accessibility of data between the developed and the developing world has been increasing, seriously impairing the capacities of countries to make informed decisions concerning environment and development.

"There is a general lack of capacity, particularly in developing countries, and in many areas at the international level, for the collection and assessment of data, for their transformation into useful information, and their dissemination. There is also need for improved coordination among environmental, demographic, social and developmental data and information activities."