THE Government of Ontario, Canada, is lending its support to Guyana for the development of a Geographic Information System (GIS) for the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) of the Ministry of Housing and Water. Towards that, Deputy Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing and Ministry of Consumer Services, of Ontario, Mr. Fareed Amin and GIS Coordinator, Information Management and Planning Branch, Mr. Jay Thatcher are in Guyana to assist with the project.

The officials who are to provide technical assistance met with Minister of Housing and Water, Mr. Irfaan Ali, on Monday, at his Brickdam, Georgetown office, where a number of interventions and methodologies were discussed.

Ali said the discussion was to enable improvement in Guyana, for which purpose the Municipal Affairs and Housing Ministry in Ontario would help by sending two consultants this year.

The Minister said they would help in the utilisation of GIS technology in the decision making process which CH&PA has already started using.

He said it would also aid in making the local agency more effective and efficient in service delivery, by saving time and money.

“This mission is, basically, moving us way forward. So we are looking at expanding that technology and other relative technologies that would help us in moving our housing sector from where it is now on par with that of any developed country, because the target we are setting is to meet the best that there is,” Ali said.

He added:“Our aim, ultimately, in the housing sector, is to develop a highly functional technologically driven organisation.”

Giving an overview of their brief visit, Amin said it is to simply to make sure that they have a better understanding of the type of systems the Housing Ministry in Guyana has and, perhaps, lend some expertise from Ontario.

However, he pointed out that Guyana and Canada are two different countries with different geographies and economies.

“Our job here is not just to simply impose an Ontario solution but to bring the expertise that we have and determine its relevance to the situation here in Guyana,” Amin explained

Exciting
“I think it is very exciting. This is a great project and a good opportunity, I think, for the Ministry of Housing in Guyana to move forward with the GIS,” he offered.

Amin said his Government is more than happy to help Guyana in this regard and noted that Thatcher, an expert in the development and maintenance of the GIS, was instrumental in building a very robust one in Ontario.

“And, hopefully, we can spend the next few days understanding where the Ministry of Housing in Guyana is and do an analysis of where the Ministry would like to be and then, perhaps, evaluate that and how we can get there. This is going to take some time,” he stated.

Amin said this visit is building on a commitment made last year when he visited Guyana to help the Ministry develop the GIS.

He said the GIS has all kinds of potential and what Guyana has can be built on or strengthened and not only used in housing but other kinds of public infrastructure.

“You can have a really well established, sophisticated GIS,” he maintained, but emphasised that there is also potential for other kinds of lineal and spatial projects to be part of the GIS.

Amin said he is looking to work with the senior staff of the Guyana Ministry as well as the Minister to try and help them attain the laudable objective.

Speaking about the GIS benefits, he said it has a tremendous amount and can help analyse all kinds of spatial information and, in addition to all that is geographically based, it can also create socio-economic data.

“For example, if the Minister is visiting any country in the world, he can, on his laptop, access that information in Guyana and provide it to an agency, a funding agency abroad or an investor abroad. So, this is a very dynamic, very versatile, very efficient system and it makes the process much, much easier for you to monitor what is happening on the ground,” he said.

Amin observed that “we are living in a global environment and countries should be able to provide information instantaneously.”

The project being undertaken is going to take time and resources but he indicated: “You have got to identify what it is that you are trying to achieve and then work towards it.”

Thatcher is also looking forward to the work with the Ministry and CH&PA to do some information sharing and pass along some best practices and lessons learnt from its programme in Ontario and learn where the ministry would like to go.

He said the GIS is a map of various database locations, such as transportation network, planning projects and housing complexes and it is visual, allowing one to ask questions like about the status of any.

Effective
Thatcher said the Ontario Government has found the GIS a very effective tool for analysing and projecting trends and communicating that information by a hard copy map, using Internet technologies.

CH&PA Development Planner, Research, Ms. Germene Stewart said the Ministry has started to collect and analyse data, at the macro and micro levels, from other agencies on drainage and roads etc., to plan and design for its new ho
using schemes and improvement plans for the squatting areas.

She said CH&PA is creating GIS data of housing schemes and has initiated a pilot for the Diamond/Grove area on East Bank Demerara.

Stewart said, in creating that spatial data, the management information system (MIS), with information on the housing schemes, would be integrated with the GIS.

“That is the ultimate way we want to go and, from our housing schemes, to extend coverage to all areas, because we have a planning commission function where we monitor and regulate developments not only in our housing schemes but nationwide,” she disclosed.

Calling it a powerful tool, Stewart said the GIS will enable them to create data and monitor what is going on in the settlements, help in decision-making and, ultimately, the Ministry is going to have a web-based GIS.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of CH&PA, Ms. Myrna Pitt said it is currently in its fledgling stage and the GIS will certainly move towards advancing what they are doing and improve on what they do.

Concurring that GIS is a powerful instrument, she reiterated that, essentially, her agency will be looking at integrating it with the land management system.

“We have actually started to use GIS. As recently as Friday, we had a presentation for the Seven Miles, Bartica area and we were able to use information generated from GIS to actually analyse the site, so that it can inform us as to the site’s suitability for housing. So, it is a very powerful tool and it is a tool that it is necessary for CH&PA to ensure that the decisions we make are well-informed and have proper and technical bases,” Pitt said.