| Sometimes it just takes a little enthusiasm to unleash a lot of expertise.
UNICEF Egypt and its partner IDSC (Information and Decision Support Center for the Cabinet of Ministries) had already trained a critical mass of key staff across government ministries on how to use DevInfo. But how to ensure that they would actually put their training to good use? Determined to see DevInfo properly used for monitoring, evaluation and planning across Egypt, IDSC decided to do something very creative.
In early 2010, IDSC announced a national DevInfo competition, sending word out to previously trained staff from information centres in ministries, national authorities and governorates. The requirements? Participants were simply asked to develop a new DevInfo adaptation containing the relevant indicators used to monitor and track development progress, as per each agency’s mandate.
As the competition deadline approached, database submissions came pouring in from an incredible 19 national and sub-national agencies. Among the lesser-expected participants were the Ministry of Religious Endowment, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Tourism, the Ministry of Justice and the Suez Canal Agency.
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Selecting the top ten DevInfo adaptations from among all the submissions was not easy, but UNICEF Egypt and IDSC organised an awards ceremony on 5 May 2010 to recognize the chosen winners. Present at the ceremony were the Chairman of the Egyptian Cabinet’s Information and Decision Support Center, the Deputy President of the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics and the deputy representative of UNICEF’s Egypt Country Office.
The best part of the event, from the participants’ perspective, was the interactive post-ceremony training workshop. The group was led through best DevInfo practices and common mistakes, using examples from the databases freshly
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A DevInfo competition awardee being congratulated at the awards ceremony |
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| submitted. The competition participants left not only with a much keener grasp of how to properly develop and use DevInfo databases, but they also pleaded with UNICEF Egypt and IDSC to organize a follow-up DevInfo competition to test their newly-acquired skills!
For the two agencies, this was the best possible reward for their labours: witnessing such excitement on a national scale to use DevInfo for better governance.
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| Data making a difference. |
For more information, please contact Manar Soliman, DevInfo Focal Point, UNICEF Egypt, at
msoliman@unicef.org.
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