Data gathering to guide regional planning process
GINA, GUYANA, Friday, April, 07, 2017
The Ministry of Communities in collaboration the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) commenced the first of several consultations with councillors from Regional Democratic Councils across Guyana, today.
The consultation was held at the Region Two, Regional Democratic Council office.
Regional Chairman, Region Two, Devanand Ramdatt
Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist, UNICEF Guyana, Michael Gillis told the Government Information agency (GINA), that UNICEF is supporting the Ministry of Communities to conduct a situational analysis of the region before decisions are made.
Gillis said the consultation process which is being led by the Ministry of Communities will see the use of the empirical evidence gathered from the situational analysis to determine what is or is not happening in the region.
“The Ministry has asked our support in developing regional profiles or parceling data into regional bits of information so that they can use that information for planning and advocacy. Once that was drafted we’re now supporting the ministry in the consultation in presenting the regional package to each region so that we can see what needs immediate attention,” Gillis explained.
Regional Chairman, Devanand Ramdatt, is grateful for the initiative. He said that the information provided will be beneficial to the region especially in preparation of the region’s budget.
Ramdatt noted that through this process (they) will be able to identify priority sectors in the region which need urgent attention, whether it
Councillors from various regions at the consultation process today at the Region Two Regional Democratic Council
be agriculture, health, education or public infrastructure. He added that suicide is one area of priority and hopes that it will be addressed through the consultation process.
The Regional Chairman highlighted that “information is very critical for planning and having the right information to prepare our budget is critical so before the presentation of the budget the region would be better consulted and informed and can make proper decisions.”
Meanwhile, Regional Health Officer (RHO), Farah Khan, indicated that the session was very informative and beneficial to the region’s health sector. Khan said being the RHO for the region, she is specifically concerned about the increase of neonatal death and under five mortality rate in the region.
“The statistics shown to us with the data collected, we need to determine how we are going to reduce the mortality rate and neonatal death. With the data collected we will be doing community outreaches to ascertain where the deaths came from and work on reducing them during 2017,” she said.
The consultation will continue across all ten administration regions in Guyana.
By: Ranetta La Fleur