The 1000 Cities GIS Programme is based on an initiative of UN-HABITAT and Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI), a major producer of software for Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in the world. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the two institutions was signed in February 2003, generating a huge publicity and worldwide media attention. The core part of the agreement is the in-kind grant of up to 1000 ESRI GIS software packages to cities in developing countries as well as online training on the software free of charge. In addition, ESRI agreed to deliver GIS software to UN-HABITAT offices under the same conditions. Within UN-HABITAT, the Global Urban Observatory Section (GUO) was given the responsibility to implement the MoU.