PIOJ Project Receives $7.1 Million

A total of $7.1 million has been allocated to the Institutionalisation of DevInfo project, in the 2009/10 Estimates of Expenditure, which is now before the House of Representatives.
The project, which is being implemented by the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ), aims to establish Jamstats as a reliable and comprehensive source of macro indicators for Jamaica, in order to facilitate more information-based planning and wider accessibility to data.
Achievements up to January 2009 include: the introduction of 621 secondary and tertiary students to Jamstats and its capabilities; 61 secondary and tertiary teachers were trained in the use of the data, and 75 key stakeholders were exposed to the project activities and the capabilities of the data base.
Anticipated targets for 2009/10 include the training of 20 public sector workers as DevInfo database administrators; exposing 200 students to the Jamstats database; and to update and launch the Jamstats database.
The project is being funded by the Government of Jamaica and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). The project, which was started in August 2006, is scheduled to be completed by June 2009.