Karl Turnbull, ICT Adviser, AusAID Education Program, Department of Education, PNG (KT): First, a bit of history: the PNG Department of Education (DOE) had, in fact, previously produced its own set of educational profiles at the provincial level. However, these profiles were rarely used, because they contained a huge amount of data presented in plain text and black-and-white tables - not too visually appealing.

In May 2011 DOE was first introduced to DevInfo profiles by the UNICEF PNG office. It was immediately apparent that in contrast to DOE’s existing profiles, the DevInfo profiles were far more professional looking - short (two page), graphical, colourful, and easy to read. Moreover, they were in a format (PDF) that could easily be printed, uploaded to the DOE website, and distributed via CD-ROM. As such,
the DOE decided to move ahead with producing the DevInfo profiles.

Manar Soliman, Senior Programme Assistant, Social Policy, Monitoring and Evaluation, UNICEF Egypt (MS): As a DevInfo Master Trainer, I was already familiar with the di Profiles option in DevInfo 6.0 and wished for a long time to be able to generate these for Egypt at the national and sub-national levels. Given the fact that there is a lot of data in the country and the growing need for information that is easily visualized and presented, in addition to UNICEF’s increasing focus on equity issues, I saw a greater need to produce profiles at the sub-national level, to highlight progress and gaps in equity.

DSG: How have the profiles been used or shared, since their development?

KT: The DevInfo provincial profiles were first publicly shared in August 2011 at the annual Senior Education Officers Conference organized by PNG DOE. The reaction to the profiles at the conference, which was attended not only by all the senior education officers in the country but also by key donors, NGOs and church partners, was extremely positive. All agreed that we now have one professional-looking profile for each province that can be easily printed, discussed, compared and distributed among all stakeholders. We have also added these profiles to the DOE website and distributed them via CD-ROM.

MS: The Egypt governorate profiles have been shared with the UNICEF Egypt Country Office staff, with plans to share them more widely with other DevInfo users in the Arab region through the EgyInfo Facebook page and the Evaluation and Research Network in Egypt (EARNE). In addition, there are plans to share them with concerned governorates to promote evidence-based policy-making as well as with civil society organizations and partners such as universities, NGOs and the media to enhance the culture of knowledge and evidence-based programmes.

DSG: What further plans, if any, are in place to extend the use of profiles in your country?

KT: We are currently working on gathering data to produce district-level profiles (one level below the provincial level), which we hope to complete this year.

MS: Work is still needed to translate these profiles into Arabic and to fully develop the governorate profiles, based on the availability of data for additional indicators. I also plan to develop an updated country profile with a special focus on trend analysis and data disaggregated at various background dimensions. Potentially, it is also being considered to introduce these profiles to governorates, encouraging them to consider sharing and presenting their data at lower administrative levels and producing their own “District Profiles”.