The side event “Information sharing to global forest community” was organized by the GFIS team in cooperation with FORNESESSA and SEANAFE at the 2nd World Congress of Agroforestry in Nairobi. Kenya on 26 August 2009, http://www.worldagroforestry.org/wca2009/
The side event was chaired by the Dr Michael Hailu, Director of Communications, 
World Agroforestry Centre and the following three presentations were given there:
- Introduction to the Global Forest Information Service (GFIS) – Partnership and gateway, Eero Mikkola, International Union of Forest Research Organizations, IUFRO
- FORNESSA Information Service (FORNIS), Stella Britwum Acquah, Forestry Research Institute of Ghana, Ghana
- GFIS partnership experiences, Jesus C. Fernandez, Capacity Building Specialist and SEANAFE Coordinator
The first presentation gave a general overview on the GFIS gateway and partnership development and informed participants of the current status and development ideas of GFIS. Secondly Stella gave presentation how a FORNESSA information service FORNIS “An online gateway for enhancing exchange and dissemination of information on forests and trees generated by the forest science community in Africa” is being developed. Then Jesus C. Fernandez introduced to SEANAFE’s partnership and experiences with GFIS, and gave valuable feedback how GFIS could be developed further in order to meet partners’ expectations better.
Eero Mikkola
GFIS Coordinator
Presentations given at the side event: