The Project Information and Monitoring System (PIMS) is an electronic online database of planned, ongoing and completed activities and sub-projects of the Swiss-Ukrainian Decentralization Support Project in Ukraine, DESPRO. PIMS is linked to the project objectives defined in the project document. It ensures the accumulation of information to be transformed into knowledge and experience; vertical and horizontal contact between users; transparency and control over project management; and the production of statistics and report data.
 
DESPRO is in the process of implementing the Project Information and Monitoring System. A training workshop on using the system was held in the city of Bucha, Kyiv region, on May 10-11, 2010.
     As planned, among the users of the system will be experts from the Kyiv DESPRO office, regional partners - representatives of the regional and rayon administrations in the DESPRO target regions (the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Kyiv, Vinnytsya and Sumy oblasts), representatives of the regional working groups, along with representatives of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and Swiss Resource Center and Consultancies for Development (Skat).
 
Skills and knowledge acquired during the training will be invaluable for individual civil servants, while the civil service’s adaptation to European standards brings public administration in Ukraine increasingly closer to so-called "e-governance". Similar systems are in place in public administrations and corporations in the world’s most developed countries and are increasingly being applied in Ukraine.

In the feedback questionnaires completed at the end of the workshop, participants stressed the positive aspects of the training: “PIMS increases work efficiency, improves knowledge of English language and computer skills, provides opportunities for exchange of experience between partner regions, and develops a structural mindset,” wrote one.

DESPRO Project Manager Oksana Garnets emphasized that regional partners who do not yet have access to the Internet or computers will have been provided with everything necessary by the end of July this year. In August it is planned to start working with PIMS in test mode, while September will mark the start of the intensive entry of information into the system by all users.

Photographs from the training workshop can be viewed by this link:
http://www.despro.org.ua/knowledge-base/best-practices/galleries/10