UNICEF Namibia contracted Development Pathways in October 2019 to support the key three key actors – the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), the Ministry of Poverty Eradication and Social Welfare, (MoPESW) and Ministry of Gender Equality and Child Welfare (MGECW) – to design an integrated information management system for social protection as a policy instrument for addressing fragmentation issues. As part of this assignment, Development Pathways was tasked with building the technical expertise of social protection stakeholders on the topic of MISs, approaches to integration, and implementation of an MIS system.
Using the TRANSFORM pedagogy, an innovative learning package which builds critical thinking and capacities of policy makers and practitioners to improve the design, effectiveness and efficiency of social protection systems, Development Pathways delivered the following:
- Prepared an in-depth TRANSFORM training module on Management Information Systems to ensure relevant course content in the context of Namibia.
- Delivered a training module based on TRANSFORM’s pedagogical approach utilising experiential and pedagogical learning as set out in the TRANSFORM facilitator guides.
- Mapped, assessed and designed an integrated MIS in close collaboration with OPM, MoPESW and MGECW. Specifically, the assignment consisted of building awareness of the MIS landscape in Namibia, the assessing existing programmes and their MISs, functionalities, gaps, challenges, and opportunities with aim of designing and developing an integrated registry for social protection.
- Developed a report on the mapping, needs assessment, approaches taken and the final design of the integrated MIS. This training ensured that strategic level management and officials understood the MIS landscape in Namibia. It enabled participants to map out their system needs with regards to design, development and integration of the system and to make informed decisions on their specific MIS agenda within the social protection sphere.