09 December, 2010

The first training of DevInfo started in 2004 after the DevInfo 4.0 roll out, nothing much happened until after 2006 when DevInfo 5.0 was rolled out. Consultant from DSG came to Lesotho and 35 participants were trained for two weeks. This was followed by a data entry workshop for a week in Berea.

Lesotho DevInfo has been received with great enthusiasm at its official launch during the 2008 African Statistics day and a series of workshops were carried out. The first training was for the National Monitoring and Evaluation Technical Committee. At the training, the National University of Lesotho-Institute of Southern African Studies showed interest in hosting Lesotho DevInfo and as such, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Government of Lesotho and the University.

Participants hard at work at the ISAS training

Lesotho DevInfo Centre at the University was established in September 2010, and is in operation even though it has not been officially launched and the plan is to launch it during the “2011 International Literacy Day”. The Lesotho DevInfo Centre will be serving researchers and the university community at large.

The Bureau of Statistics (BOS) has adopted DevInfo for dissemination of all the national data, and developments to deploy all BOS datasets into DevInfo are underway. The Bureau of Statistics is also planning to train the National University of Lesotho lecturers about DevInfo so that they could train the university students, or BOS provide training for students.

Participants from different government departments attentively following instructor during training

UNICEF has been contributing to the UNDP DevInfo basket funding, and their implementing partners for the Social Protection Programme, namely the Department of Social Welfare and The Master of the High Court of Lesotho were trained in the use of DevInfo, and also their indicators included in the database.

Participants from different trainings in Maseru and Mohale’s Hoek

There has been a broad spectrum of trainings, there were training of Ten (10) National Monitoring and Evaluation Pilot Ministries,   Lesotho Correctional Services, Office of the Prime Minister (FNCO, Smart partnership), Ministry of Tourism, Environment and Culture, Ministry of Public Works and Transport, United Nations agencies, National University – Institute of Southern African Research Studies, and three districts i.e. Maseru, Mafeteng and Mohale’s Hoek.

For the period 2008 – 2010, 164 people  from Government, Private sector and civil society organizations were trained. However, since the establishment of DevInfo in 2006 to date, two hundred and fifty (250) people have been trained in the use of DevInfo through efforts supported by the Government of Lesotho and the United Nations-Lesotho.