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Ask officials about the total number of Ethiopia's
weredas (districts) and one will fail to get an
accurate reply. Are they 630, 750 or 820?
Oddly enough, a simple question such as this becomes
an abstract due to fundamental procedural problems.
Having worked in developing various information
management systems, I see many problems which form a
serious bottleneck in the effort to enhance the
potential of information systems in this country.
Removal of such a bottleneck is an issue which
deserves serious attention by policymakers.
The first hurdle to the achievement of effective and
efficient information systems is the marked absence
of a readily available government body to maintain
and provide information. For instance, for health
programs requiring routine wereda-level data
collection, the Ministry of Health experiences
numerous challenges in maintaining an ever-changing
count. This inevitably leads to the formulation of
multiple unofficial lists, further compounding the
problem. Such data (which is often inaccurate) is
collected from unreliable sources, is seldom
updated, and is inconsistently used.
This is mainly a result of weredas being leisurely
split or merged at the regional level, often with
little or no procedural processes to communicate
changes to all other administrative levels. Such
local administrative realignments may be made with
good intentions, but the abrupt changes inevitably
have a serious impact on national programs and
systems. National systems depend on an accurate list
of weredas, and heavily rely on information
stability.
The result of all this is that essential data
analysis becomes inherently challenging, making it
very difficult to conduct various trend analyses,
like, for instance, on child immunization coverage
in a given wereda over the past 10 years. No wonder
some analysts have found it necessary to report
results only at zonal levels.
Given the socioeconomic diversity that could
potentially extend to the weredas, data analysis
becomes even more meaningful if conducted at that
level. It is not difficult for one to see how much
vital information would consequently be lost if this
is not made possible.
Furthermore, the central government would benefit
and would possibly be interested in developing a
cross-ministry national data warehouse for data
mining and analysis in planning and resource
allocations.
Public health experts may, for example, wish to
examine whether there is a specific pattern in use
for youth Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT)
programs - maintained by the Ministry of Health - in
relation to number of secondary schools - maintained
by the Ministry of Education. Lack of a single
official authoritative source creates the
possibility that each ministry's list would be
incompatible as different coding schemes would deter
a computer system from linking and analyzing data.
A possible solution to these problems could the
establishment of a 'change management' national
calendar adopted not only at the federal level, but
also by all regions. This calendar would require
regions introducing new weredas to notify the
federal level of pending changes within a specific
time or window. Pending changes would be finalized
during another window, thus enabling these windows
to align changes made at each region. All new
weredas would be introduced to the national system
simultaneously.
The initial window would give pertinent bodies an
opportunity to prepare and update their systems,
such as upcoming publications, surveys, and
computers systems. Weredas and regions would benefit
from information sharing, as they would demand and
expect systems and government bodies to fully
recognize the changes.
Change, an important factor, must be welcomed;
however, it is equally critical that we institute
mechanisms that ensure that such change is also
managed. Ideally, district-level changes could be
synchronized with the national census. As health
systems rely on population data to compute and
generate key indicators - with their significant
implications - regional and national planning would
affect budgets and human resources.
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