Information Support for Socio-Economic Development Planning: General overview: (Part 1)

Part 1 of a series on information support for socio-economic development planning presents an overview of the development process from the social, economic. political and philosophical point of view; and the challenges of re-orientation and change in the structure of development planning, especially the decentralized sub-national level. multi-objective approach, and the impact of information technologies. Discusses the data/information requirements of multilevel, multi-objective planning; the inadequacies of existing data systems in developing countries; and the new concepts and approaches in information/data collection and processing. The organizational and administrative reforms and other requisites for information systems development are outlined. Information required to support different planning phases are enumerated. Data sources, collection, processing and networking are briefly discussed.