PM's Ministry, IPS team up with Efutures, Mediasolv
August 20, 2002


The Ministry of Policy Development and Implementation with the Institute of Policy Studies the center of excellence in medium and long-term economic and social policy analysis has initiated the government's egovernance initiative by successfully deploying a high powered software tool capable of monitoring all stages of key government initiated project, large private sector project and donor funded projects in Sri Lanka.

The system provides the National Operations Room (NOR) a division of the Ministry of Policy Development and Implementation (MPDI), with the ability to monitor and evaluate the development projects throughout the country.

The Ministry is the focal point of the government's policy-making process and is directly under Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

The objectives of this system include providing the NOR with a project management tool to monitor the progress of the government's activities. To evaluate the performance and progress of the development projects in the country. To create a system of accountability for the officials at the national level, provincial level and the divisional secretariat (AGA division) level. Facilitate greater public accountability and awareness of the progress of the government's key activities. To use the ICT technologies to facilitate good governance and better rates of disbursement of external assistance.

The system also has an advanced divisional problem identification database. Which provides graphical representation and analysis of problems and issues identified at a divisional level. The system was built under the strict guidelines, requirements and supervision of the Ministry of Policy Development and Implementation.

As a 2nd phase of the project the NOR intends to provide access to the system through a website to public in general, donors, government agencies and private sector in order to ensure real-time and up-to date information on government development projects and programmes. Mr. Charitha Ratwatte, Secretary to the Ministry and Dr. Saman Kelegama, Director IPS and Mr. S Rahubadda Additional Secretary of the Ministry were key personnel responsible for the quick evaluation and deployment of the project. This e-governance system was designed jointly by EFutures and Mediasolv. The Project Monitoring and Groupware module was built by Mediasolv and the Division/Thematic Monitoring module was built by EFutures. EFutures and MediaSolv are entities based in Sri Lanka with offices in the Singapore and the United States.