Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) and Vietnam National Mine Action Centre (VNMAC) recently conducted an administrator training course on Information Management System for Mine Action (IMSMA) in Vietnam.
The course was conducted from 21 February to 4 March and supported by Thua Thien Hue Department of Foreign Affairs, NPA informs.
Moreover, NPA shares that a total of 18 trainees attended the course, with IM staff from mine action projects and organizations including; Thua Thien Hue Database Unit (DBU), Quang Binh Database and Coordination Unit (DBCU), Quang Tri Mine Action Centre (QTMAC), NPA survey and clearance projects in Quang Tri and Quang Binh, Peace Trees Vietnam, Mine Advisory Group (MAG) and VNMAC.
Six of the trainees were military officers seconded to mine action projects.
IMSMA is a free software designed and developed by the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD) to support the needs of the mine action community for decision support, monitoring, and reporting. First released in 1998, IMSMA is now the primary software in mine action and is installed in 47 countries. IMSMA includes built-in flexibility to support a variety of information management needs and provides humanitarian organizations and planners with the necessary information to enhance project efficiency and maximize the value of limited resources.
The course objectives were to provide training and certification of IMSMA Administrator for mine action project staff to facilitate the implementation of a standardized national reporting system led by VNMAC, to be in line with the national decree and circular on mine action management. All the 18 trainees passed the final exam with high scores.
NPA is the key partner for VNMAC in capacity development, especially on the implementation of the national information mine action system.
While thanking the government of Norway and the United States for funding NPA’s work in Vietnam, NPA adds that VNMAC plans to conduct several future province IMSMA training courses on User Level and Administrator Level, and this with continued technical support from NPA.
