By Nonoy Lacson
ZAMBOANGA CITY - The Regional Planning and Development Office (RPDO-ARMM) of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) recently spearheaded a three-day “Bangsamoro data + marathon or Datathon.”
RPDO ARMM LOGO (FACEBOOK/ MANILA BULLETIN)
Baintan Adil-Ampatuan, RPDO-ARMM executive director, said the Bangsamoro Datathon, which was held from January 8 to 10, is a series of support processes in service of the transition from the ARMM to Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
During the three-day activity, an overview and inventory of all the data, place-based analysis, and geographical data generation and cleaning were conducted.
“This project marks the Bangsamoro as the first region in the Philippines to have an open geospatial and statistical portal for development planning and programming,” Ampatuan said.
The datathon was successfully conducted with the support of all ARMM line agencies, provincial governments of Lanao del Sur and Maguindanao, Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, National Economic and Development Authority, Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council, and the technical working staff of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission.
Ampatuan explained that the initial dataset was for Marawi City and Lanao del Sur for the first quarter of 2018.
Ampatuan said the exercise covered open data, open street mapping, and benchmark data and the project was aimed at consolidating and evaluating available administrative, statistical, and framework geospatial data of the ARMM and existing development plans and studies.
The comprehensive data inventory and consolidation are required to build a baseline for the shift from the ARMM to the Bangsamoro Transition Authority this year.
It will also focus on development data, not human resource data (assets, liabilities, and personnel) and train analysts and other officers of the ARMM regional government and the incoming Bangsamoro Transition Authority on basic geospatial analysis, he said.
Bangsamoro Datathon will also encourage the practice of open data in the context of open governance in the Bangsamoro, he further said.
It was financed by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and The Asia Foundation.