Each year, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Uzbekistan organizes the Summer and Winter Schools on Human Development as a way to advance the concept of human development and teach tools relevant to socio-economic processes.
Around 100 participants from all ages and backgrounds registered this year for the Winter School on Human Development – initially a web-based module that took place over the course of one month, from February 8th to March 7th, 2013. Weeks were divided into themes, such as “Sustainability, equity and human development” and “Gender and human development.”
“These issues are critical in Uzbekistan, where the concept of human development is still new. Students are invited to engage in a dialogue with one another in forums and ask questions that are relevant to the country,” says UNDP Uzbekistan Human Development Coordinator Ziyodullo Parpiev.
Out of the 100 participants, more than half were very active and 25 were invited for the three-day in-person training. The interactive module consisted of intensive workshops conducted by specialists, with students expected to prepare presentations and case studies.
One of these workshops was about DevInfo, the database system for monitoring human development and keeping track of the Millennium Development Goals.
Prior to the training, the Winter School on Human Development team put together a large DevInfo 6.0 database called DevInfo Dataset for National Human Development Report on regional disparities containing over 1,100 indicators. Since half of these indicators have regional dimensions, there are more than 100,000 data values in the database. “Having this type of disaggregation makes all the difference for our participants, who can create maps and see disparities within regions in Uzbekistan,” says Mr. Parpiev. Students were split into five groups and asked to create a presentation on five different regions – they subsequently gave a presentation to the class.
Below are two examples of regional maps created by the participants:
“These issues are critical in Uzbekistan, where the concept of human development is still new. Students are invited to engage in a dialogue with one another in forums and ask questions that are relevant to the country,” says UNDP Uzbekistan Human Development Coordinator Ziyodullo Parpiev.
Out of the 100 participants, more than half were very active and 25 were invited for the three-day in-person training. The interactive module consisted of intensive workshops conducted by specialists, with students expected to prepare presentations and case studies.
One of these workshops was about DevInfo, the database system for monitoring human development and keeping track of the Millennium Development Goals.
Prior to the training, the Winter School on Human Development team put together a large DevInfo 6.0 database called DevInfo Dataset for National Human Development Report on regional disparities containing over 1,100 indicators. Since half of these indicators have regional dimensions, there are more than 100,000 data values in the database. “Having this type of disaggregation makes all the difference for our participants, who can create maps and see disparities within regions in Uzbekistan,” says Mr. Parpiev. Students were split into five groups and asked to create a presentation on five different regions – they subsequently gave a presentation to the class.
Below are two examples of regional maps created by the participants:
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For Mr. Parpiev, who has attended DevInfo trainings for years, the most exciting part of the workshop was the introduction to DevInfo 7.0. “It’s a huge leap forward. The instant results make the navigation process much faster,” he says. “I'm an economist and I very frequently use complex technical programs. But when I see what DevInfo 7 can do with just a few clicks, you don’t need any training or background to produce visualizations from complex data anymore.”
The upcoming Summer School on Human Development will take place from early July to mid-August for its online module, and sometimes in the second half of September for its interactive module.
For more information, please contact Ziyodullo Parpiev, Human Development Coordinator, UNDP, Tashkent, Uzbekistan, at ziyodullo.parpiev@undp.org.
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