10-11 July 2019, Nay Pyi Taw
Together with Forest Department and UN-REDD Programme, a two-day National Workshop on Safeguard Information System Design was held in Nay Pyi Taw at Amara Hotel concentrating on further development of Myanmar’s Safeguards Information System Design and plans to operationalize the system.
Through its National UN-REDD Programme, Myanmar is developing its country approach to safeguards and its SIS, with guidance from the Technical Working Group on Stakeholder Engagement and Safeguards (TWG-SES). Significant progress has been made, including: the assessment of potential social and environmental benefits and risks of REDD+; review of safeguards relevant policies, laws and regulations; the development of a national safeguards clarification; the identification of information needs for the SIS; and the assessment of information systems & sources relevant to the SIS. A draft design for Myanmar’s SIS has also been prepared.
On the first day of the workshop, U Zaw Min, Deputy Director General of Forest Department, described the importance of designing Safeguards Information System in Myanmar in his opening address. He also stressed that the next major steps will be completing Myanmar’s approach to the development of a Safeguards Information System (SIS). He said, “This workshop was intended for presenting the draft Myanmar SIS design and obtaining feedback from stakeholders. So, we would like to request all participants to discuss freely and actively to provide suggestions and recommendations for the improvement of Myanmar’s SIS design.”
Mr. Tim Boyle, Chief Technical Advisor of UN-REDD explained about workshop agenda and expected outcomes. And then, Ms. Charlotte Hicks, Programme Officer of WCMC gave presentation on “Progress on Safeguards and SIS activities in Myanmar” focusing on summary of Safeguards and Safeguards Information System (SIS), updates on Safeguards Roadmap & SIS workplan and introduction to Summary of Information (SoI) development.
U Thein Htun Hlaing, National Consultant of Safeguards Information System gave explanation on results of the assessment of SIS-relevant information systems and sources, And then participants enjoyed Museum Visit of Myanmar SIS Information Side-Boards. After it, Ms. Charlotte Hicks, UN-Environment WCMC introduced about SIS indicators and presented the overview of draft Myanmar SIS indicators. Afterwards, the participants discussed in groups for SIS indicators focusing on priority indicators for first phase SIS.
On the second day of the workshop, Ms. Charlotte Hicks, Programme Officer of UN-Environment WCMC gave detail explanation on key concepts of SIS design, Myanmar SIS draft design diagram for group discussion and its important discussion points including host of SIS and top priority on first phase.(In the first phase of SIS, Information needs assessment, Review of existing information sources and available data sets and Assessment of information management capacities of key related institutions were identified.)
U Thein Htun Hlaing, National Consultant of Safeguards Information System described about operational steps of Myanmar’s SIS highlighting on data analysis, consolidation and risks, issues & procedures based on MIMU (Myanmar Information Management Unit) experience and analysis of institutional capacities.
For developing SIS design in Myanmar Context, participants discussed in term of groups on information, analysis and review, operations and technology which are needed for SIS design development. And then all together discussed about next steps on SIS in Myanmar. Total 65 representatives from government agencies, local CSOs and development partners were presented in two-day workshop. This is the second national workshop related to Safeguards Information System (SIS). The first SIS workshop was conducted in January, 2018.
