Inception Meeting and Orientation Program for Scale-up of eMIS Tools in 9 Districts

An Inception Meeting and Orientation Program for eMIS Scale-up in 9 districts of Rangpur and Rajshahi divisions was held at RDRS Conference Room, Rangpur on 11 December 2018. This followed the Launching Program for Scale-up eMIS Tools that was held in Cox’s Bazar on 7 November, 2018. The tools are going to be introduced in Rajshahi district of Rajshahi division and all 8 districts of Rangpur division, which are: Rangpur, Gaibandha, Kurigram, Dinajpur, Nilphamari, Lalmonirhat, Thakurgaon and Panchagarh.

The inception meeting consisted of presentation on eMIS and speeches, and the orientation meeting of demonstration of eMIS tools. The inception meeting was organized to sensitize the district and upazila managers about their roles in rolling out of eMIS tools in the areas under their jurisdiction. The district and upazila level managers play a key role in implementation and its success depends on their leadership and supervision. The inception meeting, held at local level, allows the implementing partners of eMIS to brief the field officials about the activities relating to field level implementation.

Inception Meeting

In the meeting, Mr. Kazi Mustafa Sarwar, Director General, DGFP was present as the Chief Guest. Mr. Shafiqul Islam, Director, Family Planning, Rangpur and Rajshahi Division chaired the session. Mr. Md. Nazmus Sadat Salim, Director, MIS, DGFP was present as a Special Guest. Ajoy Ratan Barua, Deputy Director, MIS, DGFP was also present. Mr. Shihab Uddin, UFPO, Kawnia, Rangpur facilitated the program.

The meeting was attended by 9 Deputy Directors (DDFP) representing districts under scale-up. Other district based officers, such as 5 Assistant Directors, Family Planning (ADFP) and 3 Assistant Directors, Clinical Contraception (ADCC) were also present. There were 17 UFPOs and 1 AUFPO representing upazilas and 13 MOMCHs who are responsible for upazila level clinical services. Mr. Balram Bhui, Advisor, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning, Save the Children attended. Besides, implementing team from icddr,b also participated.

Welcome Speech

The meeting started with a welcome speech from Dr. Shaikh Md. Saidul Islam, DDFP, Rangpur. In his welcome remarks, he expressed his whole-hearted support for eMIS activities and thanked the DG, DGFP for selecting Rangpur as the venue for rolling out activities.

Following the welcome speech, the participants introduced themselves.

Presentation and Video

The participants were then introduced to the eMIS tools by Mr. Suman Kanti Chowdhury, Senior Research Investigator, icddr,b through a PowerPoint presentation and a video on eMIS tools. The field level staff attested the effectiveness of eMIS tools in the video, which received spontaneous applause from the audience. Mr. Chowdhury explained that both community and facility systems would be expanded to 2 upazilas each in 9 districts or 18 upazilas. Moreover, the facility systems would be introduced in all union heath and family planning centers (UHFWC) of the remaining upazilas of the districts. That would contribute to achieving the results framework target of DGFP under the current 4^th Health, Population and Nutrition Sector Program (4^th HPNSP).

Speeches by Special Guests

Mr. Md. Nazmus Sadat Salim, Director, MIS, DGFP outlined the preparations of the MIS, DGFP for rolling out eMIS tools. He mentioned that DGFP have instructed two upazilas to go paperless and eventually digital forms would replace paper everywhere. He further mentioned that 9^th version of the FWA Register would be introduced from January 2019 and MIS has been working to make the transition smooth. FWA eRegister would also be changed accordingly.

Md. Humayun Kabir, Senior Strategic and Technical Advisor, MEASURE Evaluation informed that the event marked full-scale implementation of eMIS tools. At the pilot stage, the eMIS implementing partners had an important role under the leadership of DGFP. That is no more the case as the DGFP is spearheading current scale-up activities.

He responded to the observations made by the local managers and underscored that technical support would be provided by the implementing partners. He mentioned that a helpline mobile number is displayed in the app which could be reached during office hours. Issues could also be raised through app interface or web-based tools.

Speech by Chief Guest

The Chief Guest Mr. Kazi Mustafa Sarwar, Director General, DGFP expressed that the DGFP have many successes on many fronts and they must achieve greater successes on digitization activities. He has been keen on managing the change and attended a number of events on eMIS beginning with one held last year for national scale-up. He informed that DGFP would implement eMIS in 40 districts and meet the target set under current sector program. They DGFP is also committed to implement DHIS2 and working with eMIS partners on this issue. He also highlighted other activities that have been taken to improve the performance of the DGFP.

Observations from the Chair

Mr. Shafiqul Islam, Director, Family Planning, Rangpur and Rajshahi division, in his concluding speech, observed how society is going through a digital transformation. He envisioned a future where digitization would be the existing norm and in order to prepare themselves for this, the managers need to work. He expressed their commitment to manage this process.

Orientation Program

After the inception meeting was over, the participants were introduced to eMIS tools. Three corners were set up with multimedia projectors, named after 3 mighty rivers of northern Bengal: Teesta, Jamuna and Karatoa . In Teesta, FWA eRegister was displayed, in Jamuna the union level facility systems were demonstrated, while eSupervision system and monitoring tools were displayed in Karatoa. The participants were divided into 3 groups and each group, in turn, visited the corners to learn and understand operations and inner working of the eMIS tools. They interacted with the presenters, who responded to their queries. The team from icddr,b and MEASURE Evaluation facilitated the demonstration.

Next Steps

The eMIS tools were disseminated to a large group of enthusiastic district and upazila managers bearing success of the event. Following the orientation program, data collection for roll-out began. Data relating to catchment areas and providers (name, place of posting, date of birth) are required for creating database on providers and catchment areas. The M&E officers of the icddr,b moved to the upazilas after the event and were eagerly received by local level managers. On completion of data collection, training programs for the field level staff would be organized.