In recent years the Kingdom of Bhutan has made great strides in improving the lives of its people, in keeping with its core development philosophy of maximizing Gross National Happiness. In fact, UNICEF Bhutan officials recently announced that the country is well on track to meeting most of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015¹ impressive progress for the tiny country nestled in the eastern Himalayas.

This assessment was validated by the findings published in the newly-released Bhutan Multiple Indicator Survey (BMIS) 2010 report, officially launched on 8 August 2011 by the country’s Education Minister. BMIS is a customized survey based on the UNICEF-developed Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) and the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS). Conducted by the National Statistics Bureau in 2010, BMIS is intended to provide much-needed data on the country’s children and women, to help measure progress towards the Government’s 10th Five-Year Plan targets and the MDGs.

To support the national launch of the BMIS 2010 report, UNICEF Bhutan turned to BhutanInfo to produce all of the maps and most of the graphs included in the wide range of promotional materials created to advertise the launch. BhutanInfo is a country adaptation of the UN-endorsed DevInfo database system, containing key socio-economic indicators to track country progress towards the MDGs and other national and international development frameworks. The database has been maintained by the National Statistics Bureau with UNICEF support since 2003.

According to Kinlay Penjor, Planning Officer, UNICEF Bhutan, data from BMIS 2010 was entered into BhutanInfo to enable generating maps and graphs for inclusion in advocacy materials. “Using the newly-created BMIS 2010 database, we were able to create maps and graphs for inclusion in the posters, information sheets, and PowerPoint presentations featured during the launch,” he explained.

Kinlay added, “Most in the audience felt that the graphics generated from BhutanInfo – especially the maps and the graphs – made a strong impact. These images certainly made the promotional materials more user-friendly and powerful in dramatizing the findings.”

With BhutanInfo in place, the country joins the ranks of other nations who have found DevInfo to be an excellent tool for supporting promotional efforts related to human development messages.