Originally conceived as a research project, Metafro - Infosys stands for Metadata African Organization - Information System. Since its beginning in 1998, Metafro has been a "Support Activity" to the scientific support plan for a sustainable development policy (SPSD/PADD1). These support activities were aimed at integrating the results of the federal Office for Scientific, Technical and Cultural affair's (OSTC) 5 theme-based programs and providing access to and dissemination of these results. Metafro is part of the "information systems and networks" developed within this framework.

Both an independent and internal review carried out in March an July 2002 underlined the need to completely renew the application, moving it from a basic catalogue of data sources on central Africa to a more complex "Information system" or "knowledge management system", namely a full CRIS (Current Research Information System). Any information tool dedicated to providing access to and dissemination of research information can be regarded as a CRIS. This includes records of People (i.e. scientists), Projects (i.e. grants), Organizations (i.e. universities), Results (i.e. publications, patents and products), Facilities (i.e. a laboratory or library), and Equipment (i.e. an MRI). Indeed, our objective is to reference all of these data types and data sources in a central database accessible on-line.

Metafro - Infosys is also the Digital Information Centre (DICE) of the Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA). As such, all our data set focuses on Central Africa (including Angola, Burundi and Rwanda). We also provide a Content Management System to help our researchers (and members) manage and publish their content on-line.

Who can benefit from the on-line catalogue ?

• Research and training institutions
• Federal administrations (The Foreign Office (DGCD), Scientific Offices, other Ministries ...)
• NGO's
• Private sector
• Central African countries (Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo-Brazzaville, Congo - Kinshasa, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon) including Angola, Burundi and Rwanda, and regional organisations
• International organisations (FAO, UNEP, UNDP, UNHCR, UNESCO, The World Bank, IUCN, WWF, IGBP, Research stations, ITTO, EC Programmes, ...)

Become a member !

And help us create more information !.