What are the more interesting products that the UN has been working on since early 2004 is DevInfo. It’s one of these software programs to help governments and UN agencies have easy and quick access to social and census information to help their development work. I first came across it in Timor-Leste and didn’t have a first good impression of it because of how complicated and complex it seemed.
As the website says:
DevInfo is a powerful database system for monitoring human development. It is a tool for organizing, storing and presenting data in a uniform way to facilitate data sharing at the country level across government departments, UN agencies and development partners. DevInfo has features that produce tables, graphs and maps for inclusion in reports, presentations and advocacy materials.
Coming from a background and work experience on analyzing data and information and using it for planning purposes, the program seemed too strict and inflexible. But as I got to know the program, I began to realize that for people, governments, and organizations that didn’t have the same expertise I had, this program provided a good overview of health, social, population, etc. statistics in forms of graphs, maps and tables. And it gives a good indication of where we are now and where we want to go… keeping track of information and statistics, whether it’s the number of people living in a city, or how much you spend a month, helps to understand your habits and also how to make improvements where necessary.
From my experience, DevInfo and this kind of database-type systems are only as useful as to how much effort is put into maintaining and updating them with new information, AND getting people to use it. Putting together a system or technology is one thing (and usually the easy part)… it’s getting people to use it and understand what it’s for that’s the hard part!
PHOTOS: The Fete de Geneva (Geneva Festival) is an annual thing that happens in July/August. It’s a time where Geneva turns into a party town with free concerts and events all around the city. Swiss national day is also around this time and it’s not an uncommon sight to see people in red and white (strangely, the same colors as Canada). The Fete ends with a huge fireworks display between Switzerland and a guest country (this year it was India).
Vincent,
Thanks for sharing these interesting comments and reflections on DevInfo. Your observations shared in the last paragraph are well-stated. In fact, for any statistical data management system to be truly useful, it requires a combination of good user-friendly technology as well as strong institutional/organizational commitment to updating the underlying database.
Have you checked out any of the “DevInfo in Action” stories posted here: http://www.devinfo.org/devinfo_in_action.html ?
These are short snippets/testimonials of how DevInfo is being used on the ground in countries across the globe, by a range of end users: NGOs, local governments, national governments, UN agencies, universities, etc. I think you’ll find these stories inspiring. In fact, plans are in the works to do a feature story on DevInfo use in Timor-Leste soon.
Feel free to dialog further as desired on DevInfo – I’m always eager to converse on this subject!
With best regards,
Douglas Hsu
Senior Advisor and Content Team Lead, DevInfo Support Group
Dear Douglas,
Looks like a wonderful collection of stories about “DevInfo in Action”. It’s great to hear about the successes.
The main question I always come up with is how do we encourage people to capture their data so that tools like DevInfo can be useful for everyone?
Organizational commitment is necessary, but this also comes down to instituted systems and processes to see the benefit of information management, and ultimately, individuals who understands this as well.