Main Page
FIELD’s Main Page is accessible online at the following Internet address: http://www.gmfield.info. This page has been designed to ensure an easy access to the various sections of the portal, facilitate your navigation, and provide you with a set of intuitive tools to search the FIELD database.

Quick Search
The Quick Search allows you to query the FIELD database by entering a keyword or a combination of keywords, like in any other conventional search engine. In addition, you can select a country or a topic of interest by choosing from the lists provided. Following the above selection, results are displayed in a list and can be paginated and filtered by choosing from a set of available criteria.

Guided Search
The Guided Search allows you to browse the FIELD database by using pre-defined navigation paths that take you to the desired knowledge object in just three steps. As a first step, select a subject from the list displayed on the right-end side of the Main Page. Then enhance the focus of your search by selecting one of the topics that are grouped under five different directories: countries, organizations, sectors, objectives and activities. All the knowledge objects that correspond to the selected subject and topic will be listed on a table displaying their titles and other summary information. By clicking on the titles of the knowledge objects listed on the table, you can then display more detailed information and download attached documents.

Geographic Search
The world map that appears on the top right corner of the screen, under the horizontal navigation bar, allows you to access regional-specific FIELD pages. This information can be displayed by simply clicking on one of the UNCCD regions displayed in different colours. Search results are listed in the form of a list that can be paginated and filtered by selecting from a set of available criteria. A detailed worldmap can be accessed by clicking on “more”. From the resulting Geographic Search page you can select a region and then a country by clicking on the map or by choosing from the apposite drop down list. Through the Geographic Search you will obtain country-specific views of the FIELD database.

Highlights
This section contains news items of particular relevance to UNCCD financing, as well as pointers or shortcuts to important documents or knowledge objects that have recently been added to the FIELD database. Highlights and News Items are archived in a dedicated database from where they can easily be retrieved. Only a small selection of all available highlights and news items are displayed in the front page. To display more items, use the pull down lists or click the search button.

Inventories
The FIELD database consists of several interrelated inventories that can be accessed from this section:

Profiles
This inventory includes donor profiles of major bilateral and multilateral financial institutions, development agencies, non-governmental organizations, foundations, research and academic institutions and private sector companies. It also contains profiles of affected countries and of local, national and international organizations, research and academic institutions, UN agencies, civil-society organizations, and other local entities engaged in the UNCCD process or dealing with issues directly or indirectly related to combating land degradation and poverty. Also contains basic contact information of focal points, experts and other individuals dealing with desertification-related issues.

Funding
This inventory contains information on bilateral and multilateral co-operation programmes, financial mechanisms, budget lines, funds and other financial resources available for UNCCD implementation, including relevant national funding in affected country Parties and relevant resources made available by non-governmental organizations, foundations, academic institutions and private sector entities.

Needs
This inventory contains examples of the financial needs of affected developing countries for carrying out relevant activities aiming at combating desertification or mitigating the effects of drought. Needs typically include financial requirements for technical assistance, associated with UNCCD national, sub-regional, and regional action programmes (NAPs, SRAPs, and RAPs), as well as with environment and other sustainable development plans addressing, directly or indirectly, issues related to land degradation, particularly its causes and effects.

Projects
This inventory contains information on project proposals, ongoing and closed projects resulting from UNCCD action programmes (NAPs, SRAPs, and RAPs) and from other sustainable development plans or programmes related to sustainable land management or remedial actions against desertification. It also include relevant aid activities extracted from OECD’s Creditor Reporting System.

Droughts
This inventory contains information on measures undertaken by national and international organizations in response to droughts, including data on amounts disbursed, breakdown of contributions by donor, and by type of intervention. Also contains information on droughts assessment and outlook including maps, images, graphics and explanations. This information is obtained from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Lessons
This inventory contains a sample of lessons learnt, methodologies and practices in sustainable land management and UNCCD financing, including country case studies and success stories on approaches to resource mobilization and successful financing strategies. It may also include information from local experience, indigenous knowledge, effective partnerships, conventional and innovative financing.

Action Programmes and Reports
As sources of priorities, project and programme related data, the FIELD database also contains links to national, sub-regional and regional Action Programmes (NAPs, SRAPs, RAPs) developed by UNCCD country Parties, as well as reports on implementation of the Convention submitted to the Conference of the Parties (COP) by affected developing countries, developed countries, inter-governmental organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and UN organizations.

Publications
This is a directory containing links to relevant publications and other electronic document repositories (such as websites, information systems, databases, networks, etc.) used for: (a) awareness raising on the objectives the Convention and on the issues associated with its implementation; (b) partnership building between actors and organizations engaged in combating desertification; (c) providing information in support of resource mobilization for UNCCD implementation; (d) disseminating relevant know-how, technologies, traditional knowledge and best practices; and (e) reporting on the outcome of relevant meetings and events.

Statistics and Analyses
This inventory contains statistics, reports and analyses on aspects of relevance to UNCCD financing, including development assistance flows, private investment flows, external debt statistics, socio-economic data, economic outlook, development indicators, charts, tables, maps, etc. Analyses may for example include portfolio reviews carried out by the GM, its partner organizations and other UNCCD stakeholders with the purpose of detecting relevant funding trends, thematic, sectoral and geographical patterns, as well as strategic thrusts, costs and returns of sustainable land management investments.

Advanced Search
The Advanced Search allows you to perform complex searches in the FIELD database as well as in other websites or public domains using a combination of keywords, data attributes, timestamp parameters and other criteria.

For searches in the FIELD database, you can specify the desired type of information (e.g. profiles, funding, projects, lessons, etc.) in an apposite drop down list. Another list allows you to specify the search results sorting criteria. To further narrow down the scope of your search, you can browse and select a combination of FIELD topics using an intuitive topic selection tool. Since the selection is unlimited, you can choose as many topics as you wish. The more topics you choose, the shorter will be the list of items in the search results page.

For searches in external databases or domains, only use the text box in the upper part of the Advanced Search page to enter one or more keywords. If you enter more than one keyword, you can specify whether to search target documents and websites for “Any” of the keywords, “All” the keywords irrespectively of their position, or all the keywords in the specified sequence to be considered as a “Phrase”. 

Once you have entered all the search criteria, click “Find” to launch the search.

Contribute
This section is intended as a platform to facilitate information sharing, knowledge management, and partnership building.

Share knowledge
From this section, you can submit inputs and comments to the Global Mechanism for posting on the FIELD database. To this effect, four tools are made available:

• Input forms
• Questionnaire
• Contact FIELD administrators
• Document submission form

Sign up
This tool allows you to receive monthly news alerts and other updates on your email account. You can easily register to this information service by specifying your email address in the space provided.

Support
This tool allows you to join the global efforts to combat desertification by submitting a form to express your interest in supporting the Global Mechanism or a specific initiative to advance sustainable land management.

Get involved
This tool allows knowledge owners and thematic experts to register and become part of the FIELD community involved in decentralised knowledge management. Registered users obtain access privileges to the FIELD system and may be authorized to modify or add specific information, as well as define and manage thematic topics.

Knowledge Objects
A Knowledge Object is a container or aggregate of interrelated documents, information and data items, which are organized according to a set of rules, criteria and hierarchical structures. Knowledge Objects in the FIELD system typically consist of several information components, including a structured abstract (or metadata), document attachments, cross-references to other knowledge objects and links to external websites. Abstracts and attachments are normally displayed in the original languages made available by the data owners or sources of information. FIELD’s Knowledge Objects are stored in different Inventories, organized by Subjects and classified according to a five-dimensional set of Topics. When performing a search in the FIELD database, Knowledge Objects are the penultimate and most detailed set of information that can be reached before accessing a third party website or downloading a full-size document.

Subjects and Topics
Subjects are themes that are chosen by the Global Mechanism to draw attention to specific issues of particular relevance to UNCCD financing or to highlight important clusters of information contained in the FIELD database. Subjects typically group items belonging to different inventories (e.g. projects, lessons and publications), and can be overarching, time-bound and/or cross-cutting (e.g. sustainable land management investments in 2005).

Topics are standard categories used to classify all the information items (or knowledge objects) contained in the FIELD database, irrespectively of the inventory or subject to which they may belong. There are five classification dimensions in FIELD: countries, organizations, sectors, objectives and activities. Each dimension consists of several topics and sub-topics, organized in the form of a tree structure (for more information, download the FIELD Classification Matrix). This classification schema has been adopted to facilitate data retrieval, reporting, cross-referencing and inter-operability.

To further facilitate navigation in the FIELD database, a 3-step selection tool is made available both on the Main Page and Inventories section:

• Step 1: As a first step, the selection tool allows you to choose a subject from a pre-defined list;
• Step 2: In step 2, the initial selection can be refined by choosing one of the topics available in five pull down menus: countries, organizations, sectors, objectives and activities. As a result, a list of knowledge objects corresponding to the selected subject and topic is displayed in a tabular format.
• Step 3: By clicking on any item contained in the table, you can display short abstracts or download full size documents.

Search Results
The list of documents or knowledge objects resulting from the Quick Search, Geographic Search, and Advanced Search are displayed in a Search Results page that can be paginated and filtered in various ways using a set of available tools.

To further facilitate the search process and the identification of target knowledge, a short description of each item can easily be displayed or removed from the Search Results page using a specific button. More structured abstracts (or metadata) can be displayed by clicking on the item’s title. Documents and Internet addresses (URLs) attached to a specific item can be accessed and downloaded directly from the Search Results page.

A “new” icon may be displayed next to an item listed in the Search Results page to indicate that the item has recently been added to the database.

Results of the 3-step Guided Search that can be accessed both from the Main Page and Inventories section are displayed in a table listing all the knowledge objects associated to the selected Subject and Topic(s). In the guided search results table, knowledge objects are clustered by type (e.g. Profiles, Funding, Projects, etc.) and listed in alphabetical order. When applicable, other summary information (e.g. Amount) may also be included in the table. To display structured abstracts and attached documents, click on the knowledge object title.

Using other tools available in the guided search results page, you can easily change Subject while maintaining the same Topic or jump to a related Topic. This will allow you to refresh the search results page without resetting all the initial search parameters.

Other Links and Buttons
The following buttons and links are available in all web-pages of the FIELD portal:

header-level links

• About: contains frequently asked questions and answers regarding FIELD;
• Partners: contains the list of FIELD stakeholders, partners, contributors and collaborators;
• Sitemap: provides a visual representation of the overall structure of the FIELD portal, with links to the major sub-sections of the portal organized in hierarchical fashion;
• Help: provides a brief description of the content of each section of the FIELD portal, including explanations on the use of the various interactive options available.
• Contact: allows readers to get in touch with the GM by filling out a simple contact form that can be submitted directly to the FIELD administrators.
• Login: allows registered FIELD users to access interactive platforms for submitting information, documents and other inputs.
• English | Español | Français: allow readers to switch between English, Spanish and French, respectively, as the frame language used to display the FIELD pages.

horizontal top navigation bar

• Main: opens FIELD’s Main Page
• Highlights: opens FIELD’s Highlights section
• Dashboard: opens FIELD’s Dashboard section
• Inventories: opens FIELD’s Inventories section
• Advanced Search: opens FIELD’s Advanced Search
• Contribute: opens FIELD’s Contribute section

footer-level links

• Disclaimer: specifies the terms and conditions of use of the FIELD portal
• GM logo: provides the link to the GM website
• UNCCD logo: provides the link to the UNCCD Secretariat website
• UN logo: provides the link to the United Nations website
• IYDD logo: provides the link to the site of the 2006 International Year of Deserts and Desertification, maintained by the UNCCD Secretariat