UNDP ICT Support to MINO

(ICT Capacity Building Workshop for Information Officerss)
Introduction and Background
In view of the drastic drift towards the use of ICTs as an enabler and tool for development, coupled with the Government of Ghana’s initiatives directed towards harnessing these opportunities for national development and strategic global positioning for accelerated growth, the UNDP as part of its support to the Government of Ghana, assisted the Ministry of Information and National Orientation to

Enhance the Government of Ghana portal (www.ghana.gov.gh) to enable timely dissemination of information and implement more efficient feedback mechanisms; making the voice of the voiceless heard
Develop a 22 member team of ICT trainers to facilitate ICT related training workshops for Information Officers and staff of other ministries and departments
Organise and implement ICT capacity building workshop for 30 District Information Officers to expedite the drift from the use of manual and traditional methodologies to ICT enabled methodologies of information gathering, packaging and dissemination
Organise an E-Journalism training workshop for 40 senior officers of the ministry to enhance timely availability of relevant socio-economic information at all levels of development and society.

This year, the UNDP is supporting the Ministry of Information and National Orientation to develop the capacity of 40 Information officers to enhance the availability of information at the deprived communities through the Community Information Centres (CICs). There shall be two workshops with 20 participants per workshop, the first of which will be organised at the Ghana Multimedia Incubator Centre (GMIC), Accra, from 21st April to 2nd May 2008.

In view of the above, this training workshop is organised, to develop ICT capacity of 20 selected Information Officers using the Microsoft Unlimited Potential Curriculum to enable them perform their role effectively in information gathering, packaging, management and sharing at both district and national levels through the Community Information Centres (CICs).

Objectives of Workshop
To demonstrate to the DIOs, the importance of ICT in the acquisition, packaging and dissemination of information, and their role in facilitating the establishment of an informed and knowledge based societies
To give the Information Officers the necessary training in ICT to facilitate effective content development at the CICs.
Build a proficient team of Information Officers in other to expedite the drift from traditional methodology of information dissemination to ICT driven methodologies and also build the threshold capacity to support the decentralisation process.

Program Outline for District Information Officers
Sustainability Plan
The Ministry of Information and National Orientation is setting up a computer training lab in its head office to serve the purpose of in-house IT capacity building and would also be used as a training centre for staff of other ministries, governmental and non-governmental organisations.
Twelve (12) Officers from the IT department at the head office have been trained in Microsoft Unlimited Potential during the Train-the-Trainer workshop to help train other Information Officers and staff of the ministry and other organisations who would use the training centre
Ten (10) DIOs, one representing each region, have been trained as trainers to facilitate training at district and regional levels.

Conclusion
The ICT Capacity Building workshop will build a strong team of Information Officers who would be knowledgeable in the importance of ICT and equipped with ICT skills to facilitate timely dissemination of relevant information towards socio-economic growth. This workshop is the third of a series to be held towards the development of ICT capacity of all DIOs and other Information Officers and staff of the Ministry of Information and National Orientation.