Afghanistan Information Management Services
(AIMS)
Monthly Update April 2008
Senior
Officials Of Ministry Of Energy And Water (MoEW) Attend Technology Awareness
Workshop
AIMS
conducted a Technology Awareness Workshop (TAW) in the conference hall
of the Ministry of Energy and Water on 9th April 2008. During this event,
five Members of AIMS technical staff explained the importance of Geographic
Information System (GIS), Remote Sensing (RS), Management Information
System (MIS), the Internet, Global Positioning system (GPS), Databases
(DB), and email communication to participants. Mr. Mohammad Akbar Barakzai
concluded the workshop, and expressed appreciating the capabilities of
AIMS in building capacity of government organizations and encouraging
for further expansion of such efforts.
These
workshops were initiated to raise the awareness of resources and technologies
available for government ministries, departments, and development organizations.
This workshop marked the 17th successful training event since the initiation
of the programme. Additional TAW’s are being scheduled for 2008
Recent Graduated Female Students Build Their Capacity For Future Careers
The Skills Development Programme (SDP) launched in 2007 for the recently graduated university female students is a work-related learning opportunity for women who wish to develop practical experience in a various occupational fields. Through this programme, AIMS has created excellent opportunities to provide Afghan women with training and job placement. AIMS’ provides equal working and training opportunities to both males and females.
This programme is an excellent example of skills development, workforce facilitation, gender balance within AIMS, and specific work-related experiences. Trainees in the SDP programme focus on enhancing their individual capacity through researching vocational areas of interest and gaining experience in those areas. Participants normally stay with AIMS for a period of three to six months, during which time they learn and build their capacity for future careers, while supporting the UN, the GoA, AIMS, and many other national and international organizations.
Examples of the success of this programme are demonstrated by Ms. Shabnam Ibrahimy and Ms. Mehria Fazel, who completed a six months program as SDP trainees and then successfully secured full-time positions through the open recruitment process in the Institutional Relations and Operational Support Services departments of AIMS.
Growing demands from universities to increase the number of newly graduated female students has prompted AIMS to increase the number of participants in this programme. AIMS is, therefore currently seeking the needed financial support from donor agencies to further continue and expand the program. A programme proposal outlining the scope and need for this project is available for review to potential donors.
New Version Of Disaster Information Management System (DMIS)
Afghanistan is a country prone to natural disasters: earthquakes, flooding, droughts, landslides, and avalanches. The country has experienced a variety of disastrous events during the past four years such as drought, flooding, landslides, avalanches, mudslides, agricultural pests, and disease outbreaks. Given the rugged and mountainous nature of the country and the location of villages, towns and cities, there is a high propensity for widespread death and destruction whenever these disasters occur.
Additionally, decades of war and civil conflict, as well as environmental degradation, have all contributed to increasing the vulnerability of the Afghan people to natural disasters. Several assessments by humanitarian agencies within Afghanistan have revealed significant shortcomings in the areas of water, sanitation, health, security and natural resource management. Further, the high level of poverty, lack of income generating opportunities, chronic health problems, and the poor state of the infrastructure, all add to the impact of natural disasters on the people of Afghanistan.
Disaster Management (DM) is typically multi-disciplinary endeavor, requiring access to several types of data with spatial and temporal attributes. This realm of management also cuts across many technical boundaries to include organizational, political, geographic, professional, topical, and sociological.
Lack
of critical and timely information for natural disasters is characteristic
of developing countries particularly those emerging from decades of war
and civil conflict; Afghanistan is not an exception. The Government of Afghanistan
remains heavily reliant upon the humanitarian community, particularly the
UN in responding to natural disasters.
Afghanistan,
like most developing countries, lacks adequate disaster or risk information
management systems to document the hazards, vulnerability, risks, historical
data, and impact of disasters at whatever scale. Fragmented data exists
within various Government departments but most of this information was not
created in any structured digital format and not openly shared among the
ministries.
This
project targets developing a Disaster Management Information System (DMIS)
together with building the capacity of ANDMA to produce maps, maintain,
update and disseminate information to decision-making stakeholders and users.
| TAW participants at MoEW |
Distribution Of New Textbooks Across Afghanistan
Information Technology plays a vital role in the management and processing of data throughout an organization and Information Management Systems are one of the tools used for this purpose. The Textbook Distribution System deals with managing the stock information of textbooks distributed throughout Afghanistan by the Ministry of Education and also projects the need for further printing of required textbooks.
The
system can be used on national, provincial, district, and school level for
tracking the distribution process and stock availability. The system will
bring provide for the efficient, transparent, and effective management of
inventory for Textbook Distribution Unit.
In 2007, the Ministry of Education (MoE) surveyed all the education facilities throughout Afghanistan. The data was gathered in different formats (GPS, excel sheets, hardcopy paper sheets). The data needed to be organized and mapped accordingly.
As a leading organization in GIS, AIMS was given the opportunity to work on the project to organize the data and create spatial data with detailed maps for better management of the education system in the country. AIMS planned the collaborative with the technical staff of MoE and will provide on-the-job training for building capacity for future assignments.
Upon
the successful completion of this project the technical staff of MoE will
be better equipped to fulfill the needs of the ministry in terms of GIS
and will further be able to produce nearly every kind of map from available
data.
To date, 35 maps have been produced showing the location of schools all
over Afghanistan. These maps also show the number of students and teachers
by province.
Throughout the past years, AIMS has been an industry leader in developing national capacity in the information technology and GIS fields. Listed below are just a few of the several projects AIMS has recently performed:
- Ten
officials (6 males and 4 females) from the National Skills Development
Program (NSDP)/ Ministry of Labor & Social Affairs (MoLSA) were trained
in GIS and GPS.
Ten officials (6 males and 4 females) from the National Skills Development Program (NSDP)/ Ministry of Labor & Social Affairs (MoLSA) were trained in GIS and GPS.
-
A total of 13 officials (11 males and 2 females) were trained in ArcGIS 9.2; twenty-two officials (20 males and 2 females) from different ministries were trained in ArcView 3.2; forty nine officials (45 males and 4 females) were trained in GPS during the month of April 2008.
-
AIMS’ Certified Database Assistant (ACDA) training for 18 government officials (9 males and– 9 females) is ongoing. This session of ACDA started on 18 April and will conclude on 25 May.
-
AIMS regional teams are showing their full contribution in the capacity building of government employees in provinces.
The table below shows ongoing English language courses in different regions:
Region |
Course type |
No. of Students |
Status |
Jalalabad |
English Language |
51 |
Ongoing |
Kunduz |
English Language |
95 |
Ongoing |
Kandahar |
English Language |
49 |
Ongoing |
Hirat |
English Language |
31 |
Ongoing |
Total |
226 |
|
|
Finally, AIMS Hirat provided GPS training to 5 professors of the Geography Department of Hirat University.
AIMS is a team of dedicated professionals providing world-class advisory services in software engineering (application development), geographical information systems (GIS), project management, institutional training, and information management.
Neal
Bratschun |
Shahzad
Aryobee |
Mohammad
Sabir Khan |
