A seminar organized by the Ministry of Social Development and Fight against Hunger (MDS), in partnership with the WWP, will provide an opportunity to discuss successful international experiences that can assist Brazil to improve its policies
Brasilia, 30 March 2016 – Databases and systems are rich sources of information for professionals working on the implementation and monitoring of public policies. When they are integrated they enable us, for example, to evaluate the effectiveness and success of social programs, to diagnose the needs of individuals and to control and improve public spending.
The main question is how how to integrate different databases and systems to benefit public policies? How to facilitate access and dialogue between the different sectors of government? These questions will be the focus of the International Seminar on Database Integration and Information Systems for Public Policy Improvement.
This event will take place on 5 and 6 April in Brasilia, attended by some 150 experts and representatives of national governments and international teams who will make presentations on good practices and discuss the institutional, technological and contextual integration of databases and information systems.
It is expected that international experiences will inspire Brazil to improve the management of the Unified Registry for Social Programs, a dedicated tool for the identification, characterization and inclusion of low-income families in Brazilian social programs.
Rafael Zart/ASCOM/MDSA
Kathy Lindert, Chief Economist for Social Protection and Employment at the World Bank, Juan Pablo Labat, Director of Monitoring and Evaluation of the Ministry of Social Development of Uruguay (Mides), Julija Krizinauskaite, representative of the Latvian Ministry of Welfare, and Andrea Jones, National Manager of the Australian government´s Information and Data division of the Human Services Department, will be some of the international guests.
Tereza Campello, Minister of Social Development and Fight against Hunger (MDS), Martin Raiser, World Bank Director in Brazil, Didier Trebucq, Interim Resident Representative of UNDP in Brazil and Tiago Falcão Silva, National Secretary of Citizenship Income (Senarc) of the MDS, are among the guests from Brazil.
For Kathy Lindert, the theme of the seminar is of great importance for most countries, especially middle and upper income countries that run extensive social programs and information systems. “Most countries offers a multitude of benefits and services to meet the diverse needs of the poor and vulnerable. However, this multiplicity of programs can lead to fragmentation and duplication of effort. As such, many countries are trying to better integrate their social policies… and interoperability of information systems is a tool that can assist this effort. “
According to Valentina Barca, a consultant from Oxford Policy Management and speaker at the seminar, the main challenges that need to be overcome by countries in order to integrate their databases can be divided into four areas: the administrative and institutional framework; operational aspects and implementation; technological aspects; and policy and budget. Of all these aspects, Valentina Barca singled out “lack of political will” as being the main obstacle.
Rafael Osorio, IPEA researcher, coordinator of the International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth (IPC-IG) and member of the WWP (who will moderate one of the seminar sessions), agrees with Valentina´s assessment: “In Brazil we face no obstacles from a technological standpoint. What is missing are the political decisions. We need the leaders of our institutions to give point to ways to meeting this challenge.”
The meeting is hosted by the National Secretariat of Citizenship Income (Senarc), MDS, in partnership with the Brazil Learning Initiative for a World without Poverty (WWP). The WWP team will produce news directly from the panel discussions and publish the presentations of the speakers on the WWP site.
The topic of the seminar is a continuation of the discussions initiated by Brazilian technical staff during the National Workshop on Integration of Administrative Records, held on 18 and 19 November 2015 in Brasilia.
Marianna Rios, WWP