Mainstreaming of AUICK Program Activities through MIS

AUICK initiated the process of "mainstreaming" its activities into UNFPA country programs in 2005 as recommended by Dr. Sultan Aziz, Director of Asia and the Pacific Division of UNFPA and Dr. G. Giridhar, Director of UNFPA Country Support Team (CST) in Bangkok. One aspect of this new strategy involves the establishment of a Management Information System (MIS) in Surabaya, Indonesia, Khon Kaen, Thailand, and Danang, Vietnam.

CONTENTS

1. Mainstreaming through Management Information System
2. Progress in Surabaya
3. Progress in Khon Kaen
4. Progress in Danang

1. Mainstreaming through Management Information System

With technical and financial assistance from UNFPA, AUICK has been trying to help increase the administrative capacity of medium-sized Asian cities to deal with population and related development issues. For this purpose, AUICK has organized a series of workshops for senior administrators from these cities to exchange information on "best practices" of Kobe and the other cities. AUICK has also tried to disseminate such information through its publications, including Newsletters, and its website (www.auick.org).

AUICK is now trying to assist selected Asian cities (AUICK Associate Cities or AACs) in developing their own simple but viable management information systems (MIS) so as to readily and continuously provide useful information and data to the mayors and senior administrators to manage more efficiently and effectively issues related to population, development and environment. Such an MIS is expected to become a model for other cities, It is also anticipated that it would form a part of the national population programs supported by UNFPA. An added aspect is the development of City University Partnerships (CUPs). This is intended to provide an ongoing relationship in which local university experts assist urban administrators in collecting and analysing data for better urban planning. AUICK has initially selected Surabaya, Khon Kaen, and Danang in consultation with its International Advisory Committee (IAC). IAC has taken into account the political commitment and interest of the mayors and senior administrators in the selection process.

The main steps of this exercise include the following:

1. Building up an MIS function - through the existing City office or unit dealing with statistical information The exercise will be headed by the Mayor and the President of the local university or a senior faculty member. For the execution of the exercise, two committees or groups will be established, namely executive committee (or group) and working or technical committee (or group) AUICK suggests that. the Executive Committee is composed of the Mayor and the University President and a few senior City officials related to urban planning and senior University professors, one of them will be directing the work of the Technical Committee. This Committee will oversee the work of the CUP team and guides and support the work of the Technical Committee.
   The Technical Committee will be composed of the Senior professor, Senior City administrator, a junior professor in MIS, a few staff from the statistical unit of the City. This Committee is to collect and store the basic population and socio-economic data in the MIS and also analyze them for policy advice for the Mayor and his/or senior City administrators. One main task of this Committee is to train a number of City officials including the MIS staff, in collecting, storing and analyzing the basic population and development data, within the framework of the ICPD-POA in Cairo and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
   It is critically important that the Mayor gives strong, explicit and sustained political support and encouragement to the MIS. The training should also be provided through close collaboration between the City and the local University or academic institution which can also continue to provide technical support. Another important task will be to identify the data needed by the city to examine its current demographic and socio-economic condition and develop a series of plausible future scenarios to indicate what are likely implications of current conditions and trends.


2. Needs assessment -- Identifying the availability and venue of the key demographic and socio-economic data within each of the selected AACs, and assessing the existing and required infra-structural and personnel resources. There is usually sufficient information and data available, but they are scattered in various administrative units or offices. In addition, they are not often organized at the city level but provincial or national levels. The information and data have to be systematically retrieved and stored electronically in a designated office or unit (MIS office or unit) in each of the AACs. Such an office should be equipped with a decent computer system and staffed with at lease two or three qualified officers. Data will be analysed with dynamic modelling procedures to help identify possible outcomes of current conditions and trends. Where necessary data are not available, city and university staff will work out plans for ongoing data collection.


3. Demonstration of MIS capacity -- The MIS office, once established, will issue periodic reports of their analyses of the basic population and development data mainly for the mayor and his/her senior city administrators. Initially this policy analysis function may require technical assistance from the local university.


4. Establishment and management of the MIS should be a sustainable effort. For this purpose, as mentioned earlier, AUICK strongly suggests that it should be institutionalized from the beginning through the establishment of an Executive Committee and an Technical or Working Committee. These Committees should meet regularly to supervise and support the work of the MIS.

2. Progress in Surabaya

As for Surabaya in Indonesia, Dr. Haryno Suyono, Member of AUICK International Advisory Committee (IAC), has been in touch with Dr. Bernard Coquelin, UNFPA Representative in Indonesia. He has also established a network between Surabaya and other Indonesian cities and Airlanga University.

On 5 December 2005, the AUICK delegation, composed of Dr. Hirofumi Ando, President, Mr. Yoshikane Fujimoto, Executive Director, and Mr. Nobuyuki Morimoto, Deputy Executive Director, accompanied by Dr. Haryono Suyono, met with Dr. Bernard Coquelin and two officials of the UNFPA Indonesia Office to discuss the possibility of "mainsteaming" the AUICK activities into the next Indonesian country program.

3. Progress in Khon Kaen

In April 2005, Dr. Krasae Chanawangse, IAC Member, and Dr. Hirofumi Ando, visited the National Institute of Development Administration (NIDA) and the UNFPA Office in Bangkok to formulate a CUP-MIS project in Khon Kaen as part of mainstreaming into the UNFPA country program. Dr. G.Giridhar of UNFPA Office in Bangkok kindly provided financial and technical support to the needs assessment missions of Dr. Adis Isarangkun, Director, NIDA Training Center, in May 2005. AUICK also invited Dr. Supawatanakorn Wongthanavasu of Khon Kaen University, to assist in establishing the CUP and its MIS project. Dr. Supawatanakorn being in Khon Kaen has close connections with officials of the Khon Kaen Municipal Government.

Following the needs assessment, a proposal was formulated to initiate the exercise which is now in the initial stage of implementation with funding from the UNFPA Office in Bangkok and from AUICK through the University of Khon Kaen.

On 2 June, in Bangkok, the AUICK delegation, composed of Dr. Ando, Mr. Fujimoto, and Mr. Morimoto, had a meeting on the implementation structure for establishing the CUP-MIS in Khon Kaen with Dr. Adis Israngkura.

The delegation also visited the UNFPA Thailand Office to discuss the support of the Office for the CUP-MIS in Khon Kaen. They met with Ms. Wassana Im-em, Assistant Representative, and Dr. Jayanti Tuladhar, Adviser of CST Bangkok. Dr. Ando reported on the progress of the CUP-MIS establishment in Khon Kaen, and requested them to convey this information to Dr. G. Giridhar, Director of UNFPA Country Support Team (CST) in Bangkok, who was unfortunately out of office.

On 3 June, the AUICK delegation had a meeting on the establishment of Executive Committee and Technical Committee for the CUP-MIS in Khon Kaen with Dr. Adis Israngkura, and Dr. Supawatanakorn Wongthanavasu.In August, Dr. Giridhar agreed to endorse the MIS project proposal in Khon Kaen with Prof. Supawatanakorn as the Project Director It will be supported financially and technically by UNFPA Office in Bangkok and AUICK.

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4. Progress in Danang

In August 2005, Dr. Ando met with senior city officials and university faculty in Danang. This included the Vice-Chairman and a number of highly qualified researchers at the University of Danang who are willing to help the city to increase its capacity of population and urbanization management. Dr. Ando has also been in consultation with Mr. Ian Howie, UNFPA Representative in Vietnam, to link more closely the AUICK activities to the UNFPA country program of Vietnam.

On 29 May 2006, an AUICK delegation visited the UNFPA Vietnam Office to discuss the establishment of a CUP-MIS project in Danang. The AUICK team consisted of Dr. Ando, Mr. Fujimoto and, Mr. Morimoto met with, with Mr. Howie, Ms. Tran thi Van, Assistant Representative, and 5 other UNFPA officers to discuss the possibility of establishing an MIS unit in Danang City as part of the new Vietnam country program.

In the establishment of the CUP-MIS project in Danang City, Dr. Ando explained that AUICK seeks the involvement of professors from the University of Danang to work with city administrators in Danang People's Committee. He requested the UNFPA Vietnam Office to provide technical and financial support so that the population information can be used for more effective city management of the urban problems. He hoped that this unique experience would fit into the new country program of UNFPA in the area of population development.

The concept of the CUP-MIS project, with involvement of professors from Danang University was favourably received. The AUICK delegation received a number of valuable comments from UNFPA officials. They include:

• The Office has started the seventh five-year country program this year, which contains the assessment of the sixth country program under which an endline survey was conducted in 12 provinces. Under the seventh program, the Office is scheduled to do the assessment in four of the provinces which were involved in the sixth program and three new provinces, plus one of the wards from Ho Chi Minh City and one of the Wards of Hanoi. The Office has supported Danang City in information management for more than 10 years, including a needs assessment, baseline survey and endline survey.
• There is already a lot of information from different sources, including UNFPA. An important thing is to work with key stakeholders in this issue, such as the Department of Statistics which has authority to collect and analyze data, the Departments of Planning, Finance, as well as the University of Danang.
• Another issue is to identify what data are available for the various problems facing the city.
• It is also important to develop a long term plan for support of the CUP.
• The MIS is very easy to establish, but maintaining it can be a problem. We must make clear who will be responsible for maintaining the CUP, for updating the MIS and for analyses of the data.

During the visit of Mr. Howie to Tokyo, he met and informed Dr. Ando on 7 Occtober 2006 that his Office in principle will support the MIS project in Danang.

From 30 May to 1 June, accompanied by Mr. Ian Howie and Ms. Ha, the AUICK delegation visited Danang City.

In the morning of 30 May, the AUICK delegation visited the University of Danang to ask for cooperation of the University in the establishment of the CUP-MIS project in Danang. Dr. Bui Van Ga, President, assented to the proposal, and promised that he himself would be actively involved in the establishment of MIS in Danang in cooperation with the Danang Peoples' Committee.

Dr President of Danang University (left), and faculty members

The AUICK delegation then visited the Danang People's Committee where Dr. Ando suggested that selected university professors with population and socio-economic development background be involved in the city -- university partnership (CUP). The university professors are expected to help not only organize the computer-based database but also providing training sessions on data management as well as data analysis.

Dr. Ando also suggested that two committees or groups should be organized to sustain the project and promote the CUP. One of them is to guide the project and support it politically. This group should be composed of Chairman or First Vice-Chairman of the Danang People's Committee and the President of Danang University who will be the chair and co-chair of the group respectively, and several officials and professors. The second group is essentially composed of technical people and chaired by a senior professor from Danang University.

Mr. Tran Phuoc Chinh, Vice-Chairman, stated that the Danang People's Committee will pledge cooperation in establishing MIS with Danang University.