The training exercise represents one of several ongoing and planned initiatives designed to address the statistical/data needs of the Secretariat and the OECS Member States. This exercise corresponds to the ongoing implementation of the OECS adaptation of DevInfo (OECSInfo), as well as an extension of the first training workshop convened in January 2009, during which facilitators were provided by CARICOM Secretariat and financial support received from UNICEF.

The objective of the in-house exercise is to expand institutional capacity regarding the use and application of the User Module of the software, and to help achieve a wider appreciation within the Secretariat of the utility of the DevInfo. In this way, it is anticipated that this initiative and other ongoing and planned statistical initiatives will promote and facilitate the practice of evidence-based decision-making and policy formulation by the Secretariat and Member States.  

DevInfo, the acronym for Development Information, is a database system that provides a method to organize, store and display data in a standardized format to facilitate data sharing at country level across government departments and United Nations agencies using the same system. DevInfo is also designed to inform policy decisions towards the enhancement of a country or organization’s resources.