 |  New software to help staff monitor millennium goals - 05.11.2009
A group of professionals from government ministries have learned how to use new software to help monitor the country’s Millennium Development Goals (MDG).
Seychelles is among the countries aiming to achieve these eight goals – which respond to the world’s main development challenges – by the year 2015.
The staff attended a five-day workshop that closed on Friday at the Seychelles Trading Company’s conference room.
They were introduced to DevInfo, data software that provides methods of organising, storing and displaying information in a uniform way to make sharing it among government departments, United Nations agencies and development partners easier.
All the trainees received certificates at the end of the course from outgoing principal secretary for foreign affairs Joseph Nourrice, in the presence of the UN Development Programme’s (UNDP) resident representative Asha Kannau, third secretary multilateral affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Christian Faure and the training coordinator from the DevInfo support group based in New Delhi, Jeeveeta Soobarah.
The software was introduced in 2004 and endorsed by the UNDP to help countries monitor the achievement of the MDGs.
Among these goals are reducing child mortality, combating HIV/Aids, malaria and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability and improving maternal health.
Ms Soobarah said DevInfo provides a standard platform for all government ministries and other organisations to share data and contribute to the national MDG database.
Mr Faure said the software will help members of the new MDG monitoring steering committee to collect data to measure their progress up to 2015.
He said the trainees have installed the software and are now expected to train their colleagues, as the steering committee will soon start working on the status report to be submitted to the UNDP next year.
Among those attending the workshop were staff from the Ministry of Health and Social Development, Departments of Education and Environment, Social Welfare Agency and National Statistics Bureau.
The workshop, entitled Development information systems user and database administration, was organised jointly by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the UNDP. | 
