National Integrated Information System NIIS

Guatemala’s New Government Planning Tool

Data, information, analysis, planning, solutions… one standard.
The Government of Guatamala has implemented a methodology that generates an integrated platform that
includes all the information of the social sector, education, health, finance and population, establishing all the
possible relationships between each one, and providing the necessary tools to carry out queries, reports, and
analysis of the information. The methodology's innovative focus enables the user to see the multiple data bases as
one unit, in such a way that makes the individual formats, relationships, locations and codes of each data base clear.
Furthermore, the platform is accessible online, through internet. This platform has been considered by the World
Bank, IADB, and the UN as unique in Latin America. The experience has been exported to Costa Rica and El Salvador.

What is NIIS? The NIIS approach

Since the 80’s, public and private institutions have made
great efforts to take advantage of advances in
information technology to improve their data analysis.
While these efforts have been successful, rapid
advances in technology have exceeded users' abilities to
adapt to these new tools. In most cases, this has lead to
confusion and inconsistencies in the adoption of
different systems, platforms and data formats.
The government of Guatemala has adopted a web-based
technology to integrate all it’s social sector data. At
present, data from education, health, finance and
population has been integrated, creating an ideal
environment for the analyst.
Figure 1.
Social Sector Integrated Platform

The lack of standards for collecting, storing, organizing

and processing data is a problem that creates serious
Ministry of
difficulties in social planning. In most ministries of the Education

social sector in Latin America, doing analysis takes a Statistical Office

Housing and
considerable portion of their time on the following like: Population

a) gathering data from different sources in different Ministry of NIIS

Health
formats; b) waiting days or weeks for IT departments to
prepare information; and c) standardizing codes, Other Social
Sector Offices
among other lengthy processes. This costs the analyst
valuable time, while jeopardizing the quality of results. Ministry of
Finances

This lead Guatemala to create NIIS, a methodology that

generates an integrated platform that includes all the
institution's data bases, after establishing all the
possible relationships between each data base, and
providing the necessary tools to carry out queries,
reports and analysis of the information. This innovative
focus enables the user to see various sources of
information as one unit, with the individual formats of
each data base, their relationships, locations and codes
clearly displayed.
Planning departments in ministries everywhere have a
common need for appropriate, quality data. Analysis and
planning are essential for the development of social
policy as well as for the creation of inputs necessary to
model, simulate, predict, target resources and evaluate
policy.

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Why NISS? Figure 2.
Diagnosing data sources.

NISS is a conceptual framework that provides for the

organization, administration, access, manipulation, queries,
Education, health
and visualization of data. Some of its main characteristics and finance data

are: Housing and

population data
Unifying the data available, establishing standards for the Data for
Social
collection of new data; Infraestructure
Planning
Establishing a new master catalog with individual coding; Programs
and
Transparency of data base formats for the planner and Projects
analyst;
Other sources
Providing direct access to data through the intranet or internal and external

internet;
Storage of data in one place;
Figure 3.
Information technician is not necessary for end user use; Integrated Data Model
Enabling users to visualize all the data available. ORACLE
SYBASE
ACCSESS
How does it work? EXCEL
SQL SERVER

A complete analysis is made of all available data bases

relevant to the social sector. From this analysis the links
Integrator Integrated
between the data are established in order to illustrate the WEB data
Model
relationship between the data and make them accessible.
The NISS platform provides:

Unifies all data bases conceptually, regardless of their Other

original format; Applications

Integrates the data under a common structure establishing

a data universe;
Establishes channels of communication in a clear way; STEP 3:
Provides all the tools for links, queries and reports; and is A new unique data universe is created with all the possible
accessible online. relations and a master catalog (See Figure 3).

How it is being implemented Figure 4.

Universe and Relations.
Data Base
STEP 1: 3

All the instances in which all social sector institutions Data Base
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requires information for analysis and planning, including Data Base
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different physical servers, database servers, data formats,
storage, organization, etc., are analyzed. Everyone who
Master
produces data participates in this process. (See Figure 2.). Catalog

STEP 2: Data Base

Data from different sources are integrated (See Figura 3.). 4

Data Base
2
Data Base
5

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STEP 4: STEP 5:
An interface with query and report tools is developed; this A training program for the implementation and use of the
permits the generation of the tools necessary for data integrated data platform is designed and carried out (See
analysis (See Figure 5.). Figure 6.).

Figure 5. Figure 6.
Query and Reporting Tools. Tranning Programs.

Charts
Scenario
Scenario
Tables

Planners Local Planners Management

Report
Generator

Government International Civil Society

Maps Agencies Organizations
Scenario
Scenario

Graphs

NIIS Current State

At present, the NIIS platform is fully operational and accessible from both Education and Health ministries. Also, international
organizations as the World Bank, IADB, United Nations, Spanish and Japanese Cooperation offices, among others, are using the
platform via internet. Analysts and planners can access NISS through the URL:

http://200.6.193.201:8080/businessobjects/enterprise115

Access is given to the following databases:

Education Ministry
Infrastructure, Enrollment, Human Resources,
Teaching Staff, from 1992 to 2008.

Health Ministry
Births, Deaths, Morbidity and Service Production,
from 2000 to 2008.

Finance Ministry
Formulation, Modification and Execution of
expenses, from 1998 to 2008.

National Statistical Office

Housing and Population Census, Household Surveys,
2002 and 2006.

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Performance Management Dashboards
NIIS permits the creation of interactive Performance Management Dashboards. These controls calculate indicators
using information from the integrated data platform, and can be set for different time periods.

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 Case Study 1: Social sector status in Totonicapán, Guatemala
To develop health and services infrastructure policy and optimize its resources, the Vicepresidency in Guatemala needed
precise information about poverty, water services and death rates. The integration of the Ministry of Health databases and
the infrastructure census to the NIIS platform enabled the generation of high quality, concise analytical reports in just a
few hours.

Department of Totonicapán’s service infrastructure:

Totonicapán’s municipal education index

Totonicapán’s 2007 top 10 causes of mortality

for children between 3 and 6 years

Totonicapán’s 2006 poverty and extreme poverty rates

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 Case Study 2: The State of Classrooms and Bathrooms.
To develop education infrastructure policy and optimize its resources, the Ministry of Education in Guatemala carried out a
School Infrastructure Census to gather detailed information on the state of buildings, furniture and equipment in
Guatemala's schools. The integration of this census to the NIIS platform enables the generation of high quality, concise
analytical reports.
Classroom infraestructure condition:

InteligenciaEducativa

Bathroom infraestructure condition:

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 Case Study 3: Demand for Education.
To predict the needs for the supply of education, MINEDUC Guatemala has integrated the 2002 Population and Housing
Census to its NIIS platform. These data make it possible to predict the demand for education in coming years.

InteligenciaEducativa

Inicial 0-3 años

Preprimaria 4-6 años
Primaria 7-12 años
Bàsico 13-15 años
Diversificado 16-18 años

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 NISS Visualization Platform
With the goal of bringing education information to the general public, NIIS has developed an interface that permits the
exportation of this information using Google Earth. The user is able to see photos of schools, their locations, and access
information on enrolment, teachers and infrastructure at the school level.
See the plataform at: www.mineduc.gob.gt/ie

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 NISS Visualization Platform (Cont.)
Select the department of ESCUINTLA and municipality of PALIN. Press “Geográfica”.

Select any of the school centers in the municipality of PALIN. The system will show a photograph of the school center and
all the individual schools operating there. Then click any of the establishment in blue color and get the historical statistics
(see next page).

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NISS Visualization Platform (Cont.)

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