UN Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs,
with support from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA)
|
| UN Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, with support from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) |
|
REDATAM INFORMA Vol.3 No.1/2, March 1994
English version
for the POPIN Gopher on INTERNET
(unformated, unofficial version of the Spanish publication)
ISSN: 1017-5628 (of the Spanish version)
"REDATAM Informa" is a newsletter produced by the REDATAM User's
Group, whose presidency is held by the National Institute of
Statistics of Chile. The User Group is assisted by the United
Nations Latin American Demographic Centre (CELADE), which is a unit
within the Economic Comission for Latin America and the Caribbean
(ECLAC).
The newsletter provides information about the REDATAM-Plus
software, which was originally developed by CELADE in the latter
half of the 1980. Information is provided on the most recent
version, REDATAM-Plus, its utilization in the countries of Latin
America and the Caribbean and elsewhere, on enhancements, tips
suggested by users, and on plans for a new Windows version.
First a short summary about REDATAM-Plus, for persons who are not
familiar with the software: REDATAM "REtrieval of DATa for small
Areas by Microcomputer" has three major functions:
1) Storage in a multidisciplinary and hierarchical database,
of millions of microdata in compressed from from one or more
censuses and/or surveys, along with agregated data on geographical
areas.
2) Selection by users of any geographical areas of a country,
down to single city blocks, and then, without programmer
assistance, creation of new variables, recoding, hiearchical
processing, etc., to produce rapidly tabulations and other results
for the areas selected for any variables in the original dataset.
3) When required, transfer of aggregated output variables for
subareas, such as city blocks or census districts within a
user-selected area(s), to selected Geographical Information Systems
(GIS) for cartographic display and spatial analysis.
The development of the software and of a new version for
Windows continues to be supported by the International Development
Research Centre (IDRC), Canada, with support from the Canadian
International Development Agency (CIDA), the United Nations Fund
for Population (UNFPA) and the United Nations Regular Budget. Work
on Redatam+GIS applications in various fields is being carried out
with the University of Waterloo, Canada.
REDATAM-Plus is available at a nominal cost from CELADE to
governmental agencies in the developing countries and to non-profit
institutions. Further information on the software can be obtained
by writing to CELADE, Casilla 91, Santiago, Chile.
"REDATAM Informa", vol 3, Numbers 1 and 2 (joint issue)
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Table of Contents
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Editorial News Events Who is doing what? Software
Techniques of REDATAM Sharing Solutions
Articles "winR+GIS applications to assist decentralized
local development"
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E D I T O R I A L
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This third volume of REDATAM INFORMA is a double issue with
extended information on a variety of topics that it is hoped will
be of interest to Redatam users. Of special value to active users
working with older versions of Redatam-Plus (R+) will be the
information on the most recent update of version 2.01 and how to
obtain the diskettes and documentation.
An extended section on "Who is doing What?" with Redatam-Plus
includes reports received from users since the last issue of
Redatam Informa and through March 1994. It is important to note the
efforts of many countries to democratize and decentralize their
1990 census data in Redatam-Plus databases and to stimulate their
use for regional and local planning. These efforts involve not only
the provision of the data to municipalities, but also the
"institutionalization" of its use, i.e., preparation of sup- port
staff at the regional level and the provision of training and
assistance to individual municipalities. This issue also
describes the on-going development of Redatam-Plus for Windows
(tentatively winR+). This will be used concurrently with geographic
information systems (GIS) to create transparent winR+GIS
applications for end-users. A new project, outlined in an article
in this issue, will create and test four such applications in
maternal/child health and family planning, education, urban
planning, and tourism impact, respectively. The project, which
CELADE and the University of Waterloo are carrying out jointly with
funds from the International Research Development Centre (IDRC),
also contemplates a winR+GIS application developer's workbench to
permit programmers to build tailored applications in other fields.
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[NEWS, Events]
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GIS AND POPULATION AT THE IUSSP CONFERENCE IN MONTREAL, 1993 The
International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP)
held a formal session on "The use of geographical information
systems (GIS) in demography" at its recent 1993 General Conference
in Montreal. This was the first time that an IUSSP Conference
treated GIS, normally a domain of geographers, and it was also the
first time that the Union accepted papers by non-union members. The
discussions in this session were extremely relevant to increasing
the use of the census as a source of spatially referenced data when
digitized maps are available for spatial display and analysis.
The session, organized by a CELADE staff member and presided
by Dr. Donald Bogue, was initiated by Professor Duane Marble of
Ohio State University, who both introduced GIS to those unfamiliar
with the methodology and brought up-to-date those who wished to
learn more. Seven papers were discussed, three of which are
published, with an introduction to applications of GIS in
demography, in the Proceedings of the IUSSP General Conference,
Montreal 1993 (Vol 3, pp.167-201). REDATAM-Plus was demonstrated at
a software session.
The offer, made in a previous issue of REDATAM Informa, to
cover the costs of up to two persons, with a publishable paper
involving GIS and Redatam, to the IUSSP General Conference in
Montreal was left void. Although there were various inquiries, no
paper meeting the criteria was received within the deadline.
ILPES COURSE WILL USE REDATAM FOR LOCAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS The
Latin American Institute of Economic and Social Planning (ILPES) of
the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the
Caribbean (ECLAC) will hold the First International Course on
"Preparacion, Evaluacion y Gestion de Proyectos de Desarrollo
Local", in Spanish in ECLAC-Santiago from 8 July to 12 August 1994.
Redatam-Plus will be used to show the participants how population
census and other data can be utilized to create regional and
municipal databases and their use to identify areas for social and
economic investment, with particular concern for the analysis of
pockets of poverty and focalization of social investments. See
the Chile entry on pockets of poverty in the Who is doing What?
section. Further information on the course can be ob- tained from
Ivan Silva, ILPES/ECLAC, Casilla 1567, Santiago, Chile; Fax:
562-206-6104.
IPALCA SEMINAR ON INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGIES
Documentalists from participating centres of the Latin American and
Caribbean Population Information Network (IPALCA) met in CELADE,
Santiago, from 16 to 19 November 1993 in a seminar organized by the
Latin American Population Programme (PROLAP), the International
Organization for Migration (OIM) and CELADE, with funds obtained by
PROLAP from the MacArthur Foundation. The participants learned
about relevant features of Internet for low-cost electronic-mail
communications and information sharing, including a population
"Gopher" information service to be set up by the United Nations
Population Information Network (POPIN). They also examined ways of
improving and extending the distribution of the CD-ROM of the
regional DOCPAL population document database produced by CELADE
with entries from OIM (see the advertisement for the CD-ROM
elsewhere in this issue of REDATAM Informa).
A special session introduced the documentalists to the
possibility of providing access to census or multi-disciplinary
Redatam-Plus databases on microcomputers in their documentation
centres and with possible interfaces to GIS for visualization of
results.
REGIONAL TRAINING WORKSHOP ON POPMAP, REDATAM-PLUS ET AL The
'Computer Software and Support for Population Activities Project'
of the United Nations Statistical Office in New York, with
organizational support from the UNFPA Support Team in Latin America
and the Caribbean and CELADE will hold a Spanish-language Regional
Training Workshop on Population Data Processing in CELADE, Santiago
de Chile, from 16 May to 1 June 1994. PopMap, R+ and other software
will be taught. More information can be obtained from Sr. Jose
Garcia Nunez, Workshop Coordinator, UNFPA Country Support Team,
Casilla 197-D, Santiago, Chile; Fax: (562) 206-6105.
DISTRIBUTION OF THE REDATAM-PLUS SOFTWARE AND DOCUMENTATION
Approximately 430 copies of the REDATAM-Plus software and
documentation have been distributed by CELADE through the end of
1993. The names and addresses of all recipients are registered in
the CELADE software database; all Spanish speaking recipients
receive REDATAM Informa free of charge. The software has been sent
on request to recipients in all 20 Latin American countries, 19
countries in the Caribbean, 8 in Africa, 7 in Europe, 7 in Asia and
the Middle East and to Canada and the United States. Of the 430
copies provided by CELADE, 360 were to Latin American and Caribbean
countries. Generally, all recipients have been required to cover
the costs of diskettes, reproduction, postage and handling.
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[NEWS, Who is doing What?]
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CARIBBEAN COUNTRIES: DATABASES & R+ WORKSHOPS FOR CENSUS ANALYSIS
Researchers and planners from 16 English-speaking Caribbean
countries will learn how to analyze various aspects of their 1990
census data using R+ in two workshops, of 8 countries each, which
are being organized by the Port of Spain office of the Economic
Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). The
workshops, to be financed by the UNFPA, will probably take place in
Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago around July 1994. R+ experts
from St Lucia are assisting in the design of R+ analysis programs
and the creation of the databases. Following the workshops,
selected countries will receive assistance in the use of GIS for
the display of the R+ results. For more information, consult Ms.
Barbara Boland, Sub-Regional Headquarters of ECLAC for the
Caribbean, P.O.Box 1113, Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago. Fax:
(809) 623-8485.
BOLIVIA: R+ DATABASES CREATED SHORTLY AFTER 1992 CENSUS The
National Institute of Statistics, INE, with technical cooperation
from CELADE, created Redatam-Plus databases for the departments of
Oruro (339,000 persons) and Pando (38,000) in September 1992, just
around three months after the census was taken.
BOLIVIA: CENSUS ANALYSIS SEMINAR AT SAN SIMON UNIVERSITY,
COCHABAMBA
A two-week seminar training course was held in late 1992, by the
Centro de Estudios de Poblacion (CEP) of the University of San
Simon in Cochabamba, with teaching assistance from CELADE. Around
20 persons attended from regional INE offices, regional development
corporations, ministries, etc.
BRAZIL: CENSUS IN A R+ MULTIDISCI- PLINARY DATABASE ON CDROM The
national statistical office, IBGE, has created an experimental R+
multidisciplinary database for the state of Parana consisting of
the 1991 population and housing census basic questionnaire with
around 2 million households and 8.4 million persons, vital
statistics (1990), a household survey (PNAD 1990) and a small
survey at the municipal level about hospitals. As part of the
experiment, the data were sent to CELADE to create a CD-ROM. The
work has been done in IBGE with cooperation from ECLAC-Brasilia as
a pilot project to determine the feasibility of using CD-ROM and R+
in the dissemination of the census of Brazil.
CHILE: DECENTRALIZATION OF THE 1982 AND 1992 CENSUS DATA TO THE
REGIONS AND THEIR MUNICIPALITIES
The national statistical office, INE, has provided regional R+
databases with the 1982 census and the 1991 pre-census to the INE
branch offices in each of the 13 regions into which Chile is
divided. These R+ databases are available for further
decentralization from the regional office, and R+ was installed
with the corresponding database in all the municipalities which
requested the data.
Around April 1994, INE will create the 1992 population and
housing census R+ database for the entire country to make the data
ready for distribution to the municipalities throughout Chile.
CHILE: REGIONAL SUPPORT AND TRAINING POTENTIAL MUNICIPAL R+ USERS
INE-Santiago, in two courses in April and October 1993, trained 16
officials from all INE regional offices in the use of R+ with the
census data. In turn, the INE regional offices with assistance from
INE-Santiago trained municipal officials in intensive 1-week R+
courses. The regions and numbers of municipalities and persons
involved to date are:
Region Municipalities Persons
I 9 20
II 4 16
VIII 37 120
IX 9 12
XI 2 12
Thus, around 180 persons of 61 municipalities and 5 regions out of
the around 350 municipalities and 13 regions were trained in 1993
and the process will continue with increased vigour when the 1992
data are in R+ databases.
CHILE: EMPLOYMENT SURVEY USED TO STUDY CHILEAN FAMILY
The Statistics Division of the Economic Commission for Latin
America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) utilized an R+ database of an
employment survey to carry out a study of various aspects of the
Chilean family. The results are summarized in the article
"Utilizacion de una encuesta de empleo para el estudio de la
situacion socio-economica de la familia chilena", by Rosa Bravo
(ECLAC-Santiago), Revista Estadistica y Economica (Instituto
National de Esta- disticas), No. 7, December 1993, pp.69-89.
CHILE: REPORT ON THE R+GIS POCKETS OF POVERTY STUDY IN CONCHALI
A final report describing the pilot study using R+GIS to help
detect pockets of poverty in the comuna of Conchali, Santiago is
now available. Bolsones de Pobreza Intracomunales y Espacios de
Inversion (April 1993) was written by the project coordinator, Sr.
Ivan Silva of the Latin American and Caribbean Institute for
Economic and Social Planning (ILPES) of the Economic Commission for
Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC-Santiago). The study, which
estimated a poverty index with 1982 census data for each city block
in order to determine the "pockets", was originally cited in
REDATAM Informa, 2:2, p.3).
Jorge Mendoza, an economist working in the Secretaria
Comuncal de Planificacion of the Comuna of Conchali, recently
completed Pobreza: Criterios y Metodologias para la Orientacion de
Programas y Asignacion de Recursos (January 1994), with similar
methodology, but with more recent data. He used data from the
pre-census listing in 1991 which has basic information aggregated
at the block level and from the "CAS" survey, which is helps to
assign subsidies by a point system to persons who declare
themselves as poor. Information was passed from R+ to PopMap and
printed at the level of neigborhoods (unidades vecinales).
CHILE: DEVELOPMENT OF R+GIS APPLI- CATION FOR EDUCATIONAL PLANNING
A graduate student from the University of Waterloo is developing
R+GIS software to assist planners with the assignment and location
of educational resources taking into account the sites and
characteristics of existing schools and the distribution and
distances of students by age and other characteristics. The work is
being done in collaboration with three comunas of north Santiago
(Conchali, Huechuraba and Recoleta), the Programa
Interdisciplinario de Investigaciones en Educacion (PIIE, an NGO)
and CELADE, as part of the R+GIS joint University of
Waterloo-CELADE project funded by IDRC, Ottawa, Canada. See the
section Articles for more information on the
R+GIS project and this application.
Gunnar P. Hillgartner and Prof. G. Brent Hall of School of
Regional Planning, Faculty of Environmental Studies, University
of Waterloo, have written a paper for the European GIS Conference
in Paris, March 1994, on the application titled "The process of
education decentralization and planning in the Zona Norte of
Santiago, Chile: Developing a Spatial Decision Support System for
inter-municipal problem resolution".
In Chile the development and testing of the R+GIS application
is taking place within a larger project of the same three
municipalities with CELADE and PIIE. The purpose is to improve the
quality of the education in the schools in the comunas, while
achieving a better balance between demand for and supply of
educational resources. The project will also attempt to increase
the participation of the relevant actors in the community.
COLOMBIA: R+ DANE WORKSHOP FOR 1993 CENSUS DISTRIBUTION
The national statistical office, DANE, held a 3-day seminar to
discuss various aspects of the distribution of the 1993 census data
including the use of R+. This was followed by a 6 day R+ workshop
financed by project COL/93/P01 to train 23 persons primarily from
DANE national and sub-national offices. A CELADE analyst
participated in the seminar and taught in the workshop. As the 1993
census data were not ready at the time of the workshop, a database
was created from the 1992 indigenous census Colombo-Venezolano of
the Etnia Wayuu.
COSTA RICA: R+GIS APPLICATION ON FAMILY PLANNING ACCESSIBILITY
A University of Waterloo doctoral student from Systems Engineering
is developing an R+GIS application to help health planners with the
location and allocation of family planning and maternal and child
health resources based on the distribution of potential clients and
various factors affecting accessibility. The University of
Waterloo and CELADE, in collaboration with the Caja Costarricense
de Seguro Social (CCSS) and the Programa Centroamericano de
Poblacion (PCP) of the University of Costa Rica, are carrying out
this work as part of the R+GIS joint University of Waterloo-CELADE
project funded by IDRC of Canada. See the section Articles for more
information on the R+GIS project and this application.
COSTA RICA: DEVELOPMENT OF R+GIS APPLICATION FOR URBAN PLANNING
A CELADE consultant in GIS is working with the municipal
authorities of the canton of Escazu, San Jose, Costa Rica, to
create the databases and develop R+GIS software that will help
Escazu and other municipal authorities to use population and
related data for systematic planning. The work is part of the R+GIS
joint University of Waterloo-CELADE project funded by IDRC of
Canada. See the section Articles for more information on the R+GIS
project and this application.
CURACAO: REDATAM-PlUS CENSUS ANALYSIS SEMINAR
The national statistical office held a training seminar on
"Applications of R+ in census analysis" using the 1990 census. They
were assisted by two experts from the Economic Commission for Latin
America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) Port of Spain subregional office.
ECUADOR: THE DIFFUSION OF THE 1990 CENSUS DATA THROUGH R+
The National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INEC) has
installed R+ and the 1990 census database in various ministries,
municipalities, provincial councils, universities, and other
institutions.
ECUADOR: DATABASE TO EXAMINE HEALTH SERVICES SUPPLY & DEMAND
An R+ multidisciplinary database has been created for the two
provinces of Carchi and Azuay "with 1990 census data and
cartography provided by the INEC combined with statistics from the
Health Ministry on hospitals, clinics, morbidity and mortality" to
examine the relative distributions of the health labor force,
health infrastructure and indicators of demand. The work was done
within an agreement among the Pan-American Health Office (PAHO),
CELADE and the INEC.
EL SALVADOR: R+ WORKSHOP ON IDENTIFICATION OF VULNERABLE GROUPS
The national statistical office held the "Workshop on the use of
microdata to identify vulnerable groups" in early 1993 for 16
persons from 7 national agencies as well as from Nicaragua,
Guatemala and Belize.
EL SALVADOR: CHOLERA AND CLEAN WATER
The Ministry of Planning, MIPLAN, has applied R+ to study practical
problems such as the relationships between the incidence of cholera
and the availability of clean water and health services.
HONDURAS: MULTIDISCIPLINARY DATA- BASE, MUNICIPALITY SAN PEDRO SULA
The national statistical office, DGEC, and the Unidad de
Investigacion y Estadistica Social (UIES) located in the
municipality, have created a multidisciplinary database with data
from the 1974 and 1988 housing and population censuses, a 1992
municipal census recount and information from a number of
surveys. Another database of household surveys from 1985 to 1991
was organized hierarchically, first by year and semester and then,
within semester, by geography down to household and population. The
work was done in the DGEC by Sa. Zoila Matute and Carolina Matute
within the project HON/91/P03.
HONDURAS: R+ DATA PROCESSING COURSE FOR MUNICIPALITY
The Unidad de Investigacion y Estadistica (UNIES) of the
Municipality of San Pedro Sula and the DGEC, under the auspicious
of UNFPA, held a week-long course in late 1992 on processing
multidisciplinary data for socio-economic analysis for participants
from different institutions in the public and private sectors.
PARAGUAY: R+ AND GIS TRAINING SEMI- NARS FOR NSO AND MINISTRIES
Various governmental agencies participated in two parallel seminars
in October 1993 within an Inter-american Development Bank (IDB)
and CELADE agreement to assist in the identification and localiza-
tion of educational and health investments that the Bank is
considering in Paraguay. In Paraguay, as in a number of other
countries within the IDB-CELADE agreement, multidisciplinary R+
databases will be constructed for regional planning at the national
level and for local programming of investments.
Participants in the seminars included the national
statistical office of Paraguay, DGEEC, where the seminars were
held, and the Ministry of Public Health and Social Welfare, the
Ministry of Education and Religion and other governmental,
university and NGO institutions. One seminar treated the use of the
1992 census R+ database and applications that permit the
cartographic visualization of indicators concerning health,
education and poverty through the transfer of R+ output to a GIS
(pcARC/INFO viewed through ARCVIEW). The second seminar treated GIS
con- cepts and practical techniques with pcARC/INFO for digitizing
Asuncion with census codes to allow the use of the R+GIS interface.
The DGEEC is digitizing the entire census geography to facilitate
the IDB and other development planning.
PARAGUAY: R+GIS MAP FOR THE ANAL- YSIS OF HEALTH SUPPLY AND DEMAND
The R+ 1992 population census database in conjunc- tion with
pcARC/INFO is being used to create a "Map of Health Supply and
Demand", and for the spatial analysis of poverty and demographic
indicators linked with the health of the population. The work,
which is being done within the context of the BID- CELADE agreement
(see previous entry) is reported in a paper "Incorporacion de
factores de poblacion en analisis de salud en Paraguay", written in
January 1994 by the BID/CELADE consultant Jorge Bravo.
PERU: INEI TRAINING TO USE R+ FOR 1993 CENSUS DATA DISTRIBUTION
In early 1993, CELADE provided technical assistance on processing
the then upcoming 1993 census and included the design of the 1981
and the 1993 R+ census databases. Two officials from INEI, the na-
tional statistical office of Peru, visited INE-Chile in March 1993
to learn about the Chilean census program and spent three days in
CELADE to discuss further the utilization of Redatam-Plus. In early
November 1993, INEGI held a 5-day R+ Intensive Training Course
primarily for its own staff. CELADE taught in the course and
provided technical cooperation for the creation of a small database
from the 1993 data for the District Carmen de la Lengua of Lima
that served as the database for the course.
PERU: RAPID ESTIMATION OF DAMAGE IN CALLAO FLOODING DISASTER
There was unusual and serious flooding early in 1994 in a district
of Callao, the port of Lima. For the relief operation, the Defensa
Civil agency was asked by the President of Peru for a quick
estimate of the numbers and characteristics of the persons and
houses directly affected by the floods. After a rapid visual
determination of the areas concerned, the Instituto Nacional de
Estadistica e Informatica (INEI) used Redatam-Plus with the 1993
population and housing census to obtain estimates quickly on the
population and houses on each block under water so that the
authorities could base their actions on real information.
SAINT LUCIA: REDATAM-PLUS CENSUS ANALYSIS SEMINAR
The statistical department held a training seminar on "Applications
of R+ in census analysis" using the 1990 St.Lucian census and other
data. They were assisted by the Economic Commission for Latin
America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) Sub-regional Headquarters for the
Caribbean.
SAINT LUCIA: R+GIS APPLICATION TO ASSESS IMPACT OF TOURISM DEVELOP-
MENT ON ENVIRONMENT/POPULATION
An R+GIS application is being developed to help small island
countries in the Caribbean to make decisions concerning the
development of tourism complexes, taking into account the effects
on the population and environment. Two University of Waterloo
graduate students, in collaboration with the Statistical
Department, Tourism Ministry and other governmental agencies, are
developing the necessary R+GIS software. The work is part of the
R+GIS joint University of Waterloo-CELADE project funded by IDRC of
Canada. See the Articles section for more on the R+GIS project and
this application.
VENEZUELA: R+ WORKSHOP AND DISSEMINATION OF THE 1990 CENSUS
The national statistical office, OCEI, held a second R+ workshop
for public officials in November 1993 (the first was in May 1992),
to help promote interest in the utilization of the 1990 Population
and Housing Census. The participants, in turn, will train other
governmental workers. A CELADE analyst assisted.
Two R+ databases are available for each of the 23 federal
entities of the country, one with the Basic Questionnaire applied
to the entire population and one with the Extended Questionnaire
for a sample of the population. Each database has the hierarchy:
State + Municipality +Parroquia + Area + Locality + Seg- mento +
Seccion + House + Household + Person.
Within the census dissemination policy, the databases will
be made available for independent use by institutions external to
OCEI; the Unidad de Atencion del Usuario of the Direccion de
Difusion de Informacion Estadistica will produce tables on request
for users who do not wish to work directly with the databases.
Information from B.Marina Paradas, Directora de Formacion y
Cooperacion Tecnica, OECI, Caracas, Venezuela.
VENEZUELA: POVERTY LEVEL STUDY OF NEIGHBORHOODS IN CARACAS
The national statistical office, OCEI, examined the level of
poverty in each neighborhood of Caracas using R+ with a database of
the 1990 Population and Housing Census. The OCEI General Director,
Sa. Myrna Cisneros, supervised the study which was completed in
September 1992.
The Third National Inventory of Neighborhoods used R+ in the 128
principal cities of the country to obtain highly disaggregated
tabulations of residential areas that have been constructed without
a specific project after land was invaded and that does not belong
to the residents. The information is being used to determine needs
for better articulation with the established urban areas and for
urban planning.
VENEZUELA: R+ DATABASE "BASISMET" TO FOLLOWUP CHILDRENS' PROGRAMME
The Ministry of the Family, with support from UNICEF, has created
the BASISMET database (BASe de Informacion para el Seguimiento de
las METas del Programa Nacional de la Infancia) with the objective
of determining whether the National Action Plan (PNA) directed
towards the survival and development of young children is meeting
its targets (excluding nutrition). The multidisciplinary database,
which is hierarchically organized by geography and year, integrates
the following information:
1. Basic questionnaire of the 1990 population and housing
census;
2. Vital statistics, 1988-90 (births, fetal deaths, deaths
under 1 year and deaths 1 year or older).
3. Mortality records of the MSAS (Ministry of Health),
1988-90.
4. Educational statistics, 1988-90.
5. Population projections, 1985-95
6. Social survey, 1991. These data are used with R+ to
calculate the indicators of the PNA at national and lower levels.
The manual for BASISMET explains the generation of the database
with full information on each input dataset, and provides a basic
guide for the operation of R+ with the database and gives the R+
programs (.SPC) for each of the indicators. The system and manual
(no date) were elaborated by Dalia Romero, Anitza Freitez and
Armando Leon of the Department de Estudios Demograficos de la
Universidad Catolica Andres Bello for the Direccion General
Sectoral of the Ministry of the Family.
AFRICA: IDRC DEVELOPING A "REDATAM-PLUS DISSEMINATION PROJECT"
The International Development Research Centre (IDRC), is developing
a project to foster the utilization of Redatam-Plus with census and
other data in African countries. According to IDRC, the pilot phase
will include 5 African institutions which expressed interest in
the project: CERPOD (Mali), the Cairo Demographic Centre (Egypt),
RIPS (Ghana), IFORD (Cameroun), UERD (Burkina Faso). The
institutions will develop specific prototype uses of R+. Of course,
a critical issue will be the access that these institutions have to
recent census data, and one of the objectives of the pilot projects
is to establish cooperation with data suppliers.
After approximately 12 months, one of the institut- ions will
be selected to serve as the centre of expertise in R+ and in
Decision Support Systems, including the use of GIS. This centre
would investigate and help develop technologies that are expected
to be the most useful for supporting decision makers in Africa, a
general objective of the Agenda 21 document (Chapter 40) of the
Environmental Conference held in Rio. More information can be
obtained from Mr. Zbigniew Mikolajuk, Senior Programme Officer,
IDRC, Ottawa, Canada. Fax: (613) 563-3858. E-mail:
zmikolajuk@idrc.ca
BURKINA FASO: CREATION OF CENSUS DATABASE
A CELADE analyst/programmer financed by the Canadian International
Development Agency (CIDA) assisted the creation of a census
databases in early 1993. During the same period, a meeting was held
under the auspices of the International Development Research Centre
(IDRC) of Canada to discuss the diffusion of R+ in Francophone
Africa.
ZIMBABWE: R+ SMALL-AREA STATISTICS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ZIMBABWE
Dr. William Muhwaaava of the University writes that they have used
R+ for the retrieval of data for small areas for data collected in
the Zimbabwe Demographic and Health Survey and were planning to do
the same for the 1992 census data.
BANGLADESH: R+ CENSUS DATABASE
Arij Dekker, a consultant on census data processing who worked with
the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics on the 1991 Population and
Housing Census Project, reported at the end of 1992 that he
illustrated the creation of a R+ database using a 10% sample of
microdata for Bhola District.
MALAYSIA: R+ TRAINING COURSE AND 1991 CENSUS DATABASE CREATION
The Statistics Department of Malaysia held a workshop in December
1993 to train 24 of its officers to generate and work with R+
databases of the 1991 Population and Housing Census. Ari Silva,
former Head of the CELADE Data Processing Unit and chief designer
of R+ (now working in the IBGE, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), was
contracted to conduct the three-week course. The data dictionary
was created and a R+ database will be generated for each major
state and for all the smaller ones combined. The Statistical
Department is also examining the possible use of R+ with economic
and industrial surveys.
VIETNAM: PREPARATIONS FOR USING R+ WITH THE 1989 CENSUS
The General Statistical Office (GSO) has constructed a R+ database
of the 5% sample of the 1989 population census after a visit in
1992 of a CELADE programmer/analyst organized in cooperation with
the UNFPA country program in Vietnam and the United Nations
Statistical Office. During a second mission in September 1993, the
GSO staff were introduced to advanced uses of the system and a
special R+ User Interface to facilitate standard utilization was
modified to allow multiple languages, including Vietnamese and
English. It is expected that R+, the User Interface and the five
percent sample will be distributed to regional centers. To become
acquainted with GIS technology, a delegation of GSO staff members
are expected during 1994 to visit GIS agencies in North America and
CELADE-Santiago.
VIETNAM: REDATAM-PLUS TRANSLATED INTO VIETNAMESE
By September 1993, the GSO had almost completed the translation of
the R+ software into Vietnamese. This is necessary to permit
decentralized use of the 1989 census data (see previous entry).
UNITED STATES: COMPARATIVE STUDY OF AGING IN THE CARIBBEAN
A post-doctoral fellow at the Center for Demographic Studies at
Duke University is using R+ with census files from Barbados,
Trinidad and Tobago and Puerto Rico to study living arrangements of
the elderly.
UNITED STATES: STUDY OF HOUSEHOLD STRATEGIES TO AMELIORATE POVERTY
A research associate, Jose Miguel Sandoval, at the Institute for
Research in the Social Sciences at the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill is working with a R+ 5% sample of Chile to replicate
a study of secondary earner strategies to alleviate poverty among
Chilean households.
UNITED STATES: COLLABORATION IN A ISPC DATA DISSEMINATION SEMINAR
A presentation on REDATAM-Plus was made a seminar in Washington on
"Software Tools for Data Dissemination" organized by the
International Statistics Programme Center (ISPC) of the United
States Bureau of the Census for participants from Romania, Taiwan
and Nepal.
=================================================================
[NEWS, Software]
================================================================
HOW TO OBTAIN YOUR REDATAM-Plus 2.01
UPGRADE If you are using a Redatam-Plus version dated
earlier than 28 February 1994, you can obtain the latest upgrade at
a nominal cost.
If you have a registered copy of any version of Redatam-Plus, you
can obtain the latest version by filling out the Request Form on
the back page of REDATAM Informa and enclosing a payment of
US$15.00 to cover the costs of the diskettes, documentation,
postage and handling. The cost is 0.6UF in Chilean pesos. If the
earlier version was purchased on or after 1 January 1994, the
upgrade will be sent free of charge.
If you are not registered (that is, you do not have the original
diskettes with the Users Manual of Redatam-Plus), you can receive
the latest version by requesting it from CELADE, Casilla 91,
Santiago, Chile. Please send the US$15 with your request.
If you have the Users Manual, but are unsure whether you are
registered, enclosing the original title page from the Users Manual
will be sufficient to be considered registered.
THE NEXT GENERATION: REDATAM-PLUS FOR WINDOWS
CELADE is developing "Redatam-Plus for Win- dows", tentatively
winR+. The new system will do all that the present Redatam-Plus
does and much more, and will have the typical Windows 3.1 Graphi-
cal User Interface (GUI). To the extent possible, Windows 3.1
conventions are being followed so that anyone who is familiar with
Windows can easily begin to use winR+, although as in other DOS
systems transferred to Windows, this will result in some loss of
individuality.
The move to Windows not only follows the direction taken by
most major commercial software developers, but is necessary to
allow the near-transparent integration of Redatam-Plus with GIS
packages and other software that will be required in the future.
The new winR+ system will be more modular to improve reliability
and simplify maintenance. The latter should also be facilitated by
programming in a fourth genera- tion language, FoxPro for Windows
(and in Visual C++ and C, when necessary). The use of the Fox- Pro
language will allow many winR+ operations to take advantage of the
dBase format and management facilities. For example, dBase files
allow easy addition of another language to the English and
Spanish which will be shipped with the system.
Some of the new features in winR+ include: 1) Use of a mouse as
well as the keyboard. 2) Windows 3.1 facilities for printing and
for changing screen fonts. 3) Navigation system to locate commands,
entities, elements and variables, with "point and shoot" to
include any of these in a command file (.SPC). 4) Various
command files can be opened in separate editing windows; cut, paste
and other editing capabilities within and between windows. 5)
Association of external dBase files with an R+ database. For
example, an R+ census database can be used directly with an
existing municipal dBase database containing information on each
district without first importing the dBase data into the R+
database (although that will be possible when desired, as well
the creation of a Dbase file -or SPSS, Lotus, ASCII, etc. file-
from an R+ database). 6) Command files (.SPC) can be compiled, if
desired, to speed up processing. 7) Automatic backup of command
files in the editing windows. 8) Keyboard macros. 9) Windows
3.1 memory management allowing larger processes to be run using
additional RAM memory, if available. 10) A log file of all
operations that can be edited, if desired, and played again.
11)Transparent R+GIS interface with geographical information
systems (GIS) that use dBase and selected other formats, with
integrity checking. 12) Map display capabilities (probably through
POP-MAP) integrated with winR+ (in addition to the above
mentioned interface with a number of major commercial GIS).
13)winR+ will operate on a network with the master database
and dictionary frozen. A user have his/her own copy of the
dictionary in a workspace and can GENERATE a new "permanent"
variable for storage in his/her workspace. Only the database
administrator can change the master database and dictionary.
The development of winR+ is being carried out within a larger
joint CELADE-University of Waterloo project financed by IDRC to
create selected R+GIS generic applications. See the article
describing the project in this issue of REDATAM Informa.
COPYRIGHT AND SOFTWARE COPYING POLICY FOR REDATAM-PLUS
Problems of copyright were of little consequence when CELADE began
the distribution of the original Redatam system in the late 1980's,
since the users were in large part limited to staff of the national
statistical offices (NSO) of Latin America and the Caribbean and
worked with census databases which were normally not available
outside the NSO. The release of REDATAM-Plus has been accompanied
by a large increase in the number, type and regional distribution.
While the dispersion of the system is highly desirable, both CELADE
and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), which has
provided most of the resources for developing and enhancing
Redatam, have become concerned with the need for copyright so that
control of the system and its distribution at a reasonable cost can
be maintained.
The following are the terms of the agreement which all users are
expected to abide by, whether they purchased the software or
received it free of charge: 1) Use of any version of the Redatam
software constitutes acceptance of the terms of this agreement. 2)
The software that is sold at cost or given without charge to a
governmental agency in the developing world or to a non-profit
institution, or copies derived from the original copy, can be
used by the institution on any of its computers for
non-commercial purposes. 3) On the other hand, persons working in
commercial and profit-oriented institutions must pay the
commercial price for the software and such users must use the
software on a single computer and must not transfer the same
diskettes or the R+ software in any form to any other parties.
CELADE, which is an entity within ECLAC, owns the copyright
to Redatam-Plus. CELADE is pleased to acknowledge that various GIS
applications and many improvements in Redatam-Plus have been, and
are being, made in collaboration with Professor Brent Hall and
graduate students in the Faculties of Environmental Studies and
Systems Engineering at the University of Waterloo, Canada. CELADE
also is pleased to acknowledge formally that the work on Redatam
and Redatam-Plus was carried out with resources provided by the
International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Ottawa, Canada,
and with additional support from the United Nations Population Fund
(UNFPA), the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and
the Regular Budget of the United Nations.
SHORT MANUAL FOR REDATAM-PLUS WRITTEN BY INE-CHILE
The National Institute of Statistics (INE) of Chile published the
"Manual Basico, Redatam-Plus" in October 1993. The manual, written
by Juan Martinez Brendemhul for the Department of Demographic
Statistics of INE, includes all the basic concepts and commands
with various examples of processes using the 1982 census of Chile
as an example. The manual was produced to help support the
decentralization of the 1992 census data to the regions and
municipalities that will take place during 1994. See "Chile" in the
section Who is doing What?.
GIS MANUAL FOR DISPLAYING R+ RESULTS ON MAPS WITH pcARC/INFO
The short manual Desplegando resultados de REDATAM-Plus en Sistemas
de Informacion Geografica: Notas sobre el uso de pcARC/INFO para
digitilizar y producir mapas con microdatos censales en Redatam-
Plus, written by Stefan Bagladi and Pablo Fuentes is available from
CELADE (LC/DEM/G.116, Serie A, No. 261. Spanish only).
DOCUMENT INTRODUCING BASIC GIS CONCEPTS
The document "Introduccion a los sistemas de Informacion
geograficos (SIG)", written by Ms. Alejandra Silva, for a short
course on basic GIS concepts taught to university statistics
students, will be provided on request by CELADE, until the stock is
exhausted. (LC/DEM/R.208, Series A-289; Spanish only).
CHANGES IN THE TEAM WORKING ON REDATAM-PLUS IN CELADE
The principal designer of Redatam-Plus, Mr. Ari Silva, who was also
the Head of the CELADE Data Processing Unit, decided in 1993 to
return to his native country, Brazil (see the Who is Doing What?
section for his work on putting the Brazilian census on CD-ROM). He
can be reached at: Mr. Ari Silva, Rua Faro 54, suite 104, 22461-020
Jardin Botanico, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Tel: (5521) 512-4332. Fax:
248-4123. E-mail: nsi@bribge.bitnet
Mr. Serge Poulard, who completed his activities as the CELADE
Regional Advisor for Census Data Processing in the Caribbean, is
now the Chief of the CELADE Data Processing Unit. He is in charge
of the overall design and programming of winR+ and the winR+G
developer's workbench and works with the veteran CELADE Redatam
analyst/programmers, Sergio Somerville and Claudio Meza. All also
continue to provide technical assistance and training.
Mr. Daniel Antich, the analyst/programmer who carried out
many Redatam technical assistance and training courses and assisted
in the creation of Redatam-Plus, left CELADE in 1993 when the
CELADE office in Costa Rica was closed due to a reduction in
funding.
POPMAP VERSION 2.0 RELEASED WITH MANY NEW FEATURES
The Computer Software and Support for Population Activities Project
in the United Nations Statistical Office released PopMap version
2.0 with a new User's Guide and Reference Manual and a new
computerized tutorial in early 1994. The PopMap software, user's
guide and reference manual will be available in Spanish in the
second quarter of 1994.
PopMap v2.0 has the following new features: -Easier application
development and maintenance
-The PopMap spreadsheet provides an
alternative
-Data entry (the other is through the Database Editor
module) by importing external data in Lotus 1-2-3 or DBF formats,
and matching and reorganizing this data before updating it into
the database. Map exchange (import/export) with AutoCAD format is
included and there is full contextual help with the F1 function
key.
-Enhanced capabilities for MIS family planning applications.
-PopMap allows individual facility data manipulation by
selective retrieving, modifying and updating data into the
database, as well as displaying facility icons on a map. Display
features now allow individual facilities to be shown with textual
and graphic information. Various existing features have been
improved and optimized, including:
-Improved memory management (requires only 550KB conventional
RAM and takes advantage of additional expanded/extended memory if
available). The PopMap spreadsheet allows handling of larger
datasets (50 columns and 1024 rows) and there is improved graph and
map display and printing with customized legends. "A run-time
distribution version of PopMap with only data
retrieval/spreadsheet/graphics/mapping features is now available.
This will allow national institutions to disseminate easily and
widely their data to the largest potential number of users. To
obtain PopMap, please contact: Mr. Vu Duy Man, Statistical
Division, DESIPA, United Nations, New York, NY 10017, USA Fax:
1-212-963-4116 Phone: 1-212-963-2054
=================================================================
[TECHNIQUES of REDATAM, Sharing Solutions]
================================================================
BASIC & EXTENDED CENSUS QUESTION- NAIRES IN A SINGLE R+ DATABASE
Various countries carry out their population and housing census in
two levels of detail: 1) a basic questionnaire with relatively few
variables which is applied to all persons in the country; and 2) an
extended questionnaire for a sample of the population, usually
around 25 or 30%. Often two databases are constructed, one with the
basic questionnaire with all the households and population and the
other with only the households and their members included in the
extended questionnaire. Is there a way to construct a single
database that contains all or most of the data?
One approach is the following: Suppose that the structure is
as shown down to the level of population. First the database is
generated with the basic ques- tionnaire variables down to
"population". Then for population, using a "match process", an
additional entity is created called "ExtQuest" so that all the data
are available for all the persons. Unfortunately, extended
questionnaire variables for the household and house are lost, since
adding them as separate branches under their respective entities
would create new branches that cannot enter in the same
tabulations as the main branch.
To reduce the size of the database, another trick is to
recode out of range variables. For example, a variable with the
values 0=No, 1=Yes, Blank=Not applicable and 9=Unknown would
normally require 4 bits in R+. If the variable is recoded with
2=Out of Range and 3=Not applicable, then only 2 bits are required.
This suggestion is based on notes provided by Daniel Antich,
an analyst/programmer who worked in CELADE-San Jose, Costa Rica,
until it was closed in early 1993 for lack of funds. The idea was
originally proposed for the census of Venezuela.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE IMPROVED R+ TO pcARC/INFO GIS INTERFACE
The following are instructions for operating the improved GIS
interface in the 28 February 1994 release of R+ v2.01. The text is
the same as the Readme file, shipped with the update. It is assumed
that the OPTION GIS has already been used to produce one or more
GIS output files in the statistical processor (see the User
Manual).
1. Initiate the data transfer to the pcARC/INFO coverage with
the "SELECTION FOR GIS" of the STATISTICS option of the main
menu.
2. In a selection window, select one of the "GIS Interface
Files" from those previously created with the Option GIS in the
Statistical Processor module. Once the file is selected, the
variable list of the GIS Interface File appears in a window.
Select (tag) the variables to be moved to the GIS coverage
using the F2 key. Note, that the key variable, usually the geo-
graphical identification code, which must be common to both
REDATAM and the GIS coverage, must always be tagged.
3. Press the F3 key to move the process to the next step.
Select the GIS interface, i.e. pcARC/INFO. Then, enter the
pcARC/INFO coverage name with complete directory path.
4. When next asked for the variable name that corresponds to
the key in the GIS interface file, you must give the name of
the key in the coverage (they are not always equal). Then it asks
for its length in the coverage (e.g., 8 which means 8 characters),
and the variable type (which, for the key, must be character;
other variables may be either numerical or character and may
be assigned different names in the coverage from those in
Redatam).
If the GIS Interface File was created by a WRITE command
used with OPTION GIS, the data columns to be selected are
identified by their own R+ names. If the GIS Interface File was
created by a CROSS-TAB with OPTION GIS, the individual data
columns are identified by the codes of the tabulated variable.
If OPTION PERCENT ROW was also used in the cross tabulation,
the individual "columns" to be transferred to the GIS are shown
in the selection window as, for example, 0; 0 % row; 1; 1 % row;
etc. (supposing that the codes of the variable are 0; 1;
etc).
5. Once the last variable definition is completed, the
transfer process is initiated. At completion, a message window
indicates the number of and status of each variable (whether it is
loaded or not loaded).
An R+ to GIS variable loading will fail when there are
errors or inconsistencies such as an illegal variable type or
length, mismatch of the area key variable, duplicated variable
name etc.
If some of the variables do not load but there are no
apparent inconsistencies, try loading them individually
through the interface procedure, remembering that the coverage
file in pcARC/INFO has to be checked before re-trying to eliminate
the incorrectly "loaded" variables ("drop item" in pcARC/INFO). 6.
Use [ESC] to quit the interface.
These instructions have not been printed as supplemental pages
for the User Manual, since a much more complete and robust R+GIS
link is being designed for the new Windows version, winR+.
=================================================================
[ARTICLE]
=================================================================
The CELADE-Waterloo-IDRC Project:
winR+GIS APPLICATIONS TO ASSIST DECENTRALIZED LOCAL DEVELOPMENT
Arthur Conning, Project Coordinator,
CELADE,
Santiago, Chile
Brent Hall, Project Coordinator,
University of Waterloo, Canada
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, SOCIAL EQUITY AND SPATIAL DECENTRALIZATION
The member Governments of the United Nations Commission for Latin
America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) have agreed that sustained
development in the 1990's and beyond requires the transformation of
productive structures while working toward greater social equity.
This strategy is directed towards goals with include a)
environmentally sustainable economic development, b) continuous
improvement in the quality of human resources, and c)
strengthening the commitment of all sectors through fortifying
participatory democracy and increasing equality among social and
economic groups. Among the basic conditions necessary for the
progressive achievement of these broad policy objectives in the
Latin American and Caribbean societies is the spatial
decentralization of power and resources.
A necessary condition for bringing about effective
decentralization while providing a basis for increasing
productivity and social equity is that the public and private
sectors at regional and local levels within a country have the data
and necessary information tools for identifying needs, planning,
decision making and the implementation and evaluation of projects.
This implies, among other things, easy access to geogra- phically
disaggregated population data, for which the present 1990-round of
population and housing censuses, along with the previous censuses,
are the primary sources of information. These census data must be
integrated with multidisciplinary data from other fields to permit
retrieval of tailored disaggregated information and the graphical
display and spatial analysis of the information.
To these ends, in the latter half of the 1980's the Latin
American Demographic Centre (CELADE) began development of the
Redatam REtrieval of DATa for small Areas by Microcomputer package
with aid from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC)
and additional support from the Canadian International Development
Agency (CIDA) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). The
present version, Redatam-Plus, now used in most of the countries of
the Latin American and Caribbean Region, continues to be the only
known software technology in the Region which allows easy manage-
ment, processing and retrieval of microdata for small- areas from
very large census and other hierarchical files on a microcomputer.
In addition, the present system allows municipal and other users to
work with their own hierarchical multidisciplinary databases
containing both micro and aggregate information, and has facilities
for the transfer of the user's output to geographical information
systems (GIS) for spatial display and analysis.
While the existing Redatam-Plus software has features that
open up possibilities for using the census and other data with GIS
for spatial planning at the regional and municipal levels, the
present system has important drawbacks that limit easy adoption by
planners and decision makers at regional and local levels in
fields as education, health, urban planning, etc. To resolve these
problems, CELADE and the University of Waterloo (UW) have obtained
funds for a new joint Redatam project titled "R+GIS generic popula-
tion-related applications to facilitate decentralized local
development". The new project will allow a major revamping of
Redatam-Plus, adding new capacities, while at the same time
creating practical R+GIS end-user applications in important
development fields. The new CELADE-UW project began in July 1993
and is estimated to conclude within 30 months (November 1995).
LIMITATIONS OF THE PRESENT REDATAM-PLUS FOR DECENTRALIZED LOCAL
PLANNING
As noted above, the efforts to integrate the use of population
information into local planning in large part will require
that workers in various fields in the public and private sectors
-that is, planners and decision makers concerned with health,
education, transport, agriculture, urban development, and many
more-- have easy access to the population information that they
require in association with the data from their own fields. For
these purposes, it is particularly important to provide these
secondary users of population information with the means to use
multidisciplinary databases to deal with problems and decision
making in their own fields.
Planners and others at the local level normally are not
interested in generalized software such as Redatam-Plus or a GIS.
They are involved on a daily basis with practical problems and
therefore need easy to use assistance that provides answers and
"solutions" or at least alternatives to their questions in their
own fields. They are different from the Redatam-Plus technical or
substantive users who are found in institutions like national
statistical offices or research organizations who need more
generalized software because they are concerned with various
different topics (and who generally are likely to be more com-
putationally literate than many municipal planners and decision
makers).
Thus, simply providing Redatam-Plus along with the means for
transferring the results to a GIS is inadequate for secondary
population information users and even less so when they first have
to be introduced to the new technologies. Rather practical R+GIS
applications for use by municipal and other planners in their own
specific fields are necessary to assist the countries to bring
about effective decentralization. That is, the planner should have
a system that allows him/her to define alternative scenarios within
the policy constraints and obtain the required results, without
having to write Redatam-Plus programs or create GIS models and
output displays.
The existing Redatam-Plus software, however, does not have the
facilities for creating transparent end-user R+GIS applications.
Furthermore, the R+GIS interface, while improved in the latest
version 2.01 release, does not provide full integrity checking
required for reliable operation with limited user intervention.
Redatam-Plus and the GIS programs must both be open at the
same time to allow the types of applications and transparency
required, perhaps with processing taking place in one or the other
or both in the background. Microsoft Windows would seem to be the
operating system to achieve this, especially since so many of the
major commercial software are now in Windows 3.x (it is estimated
that there are 50 million Windows users worldwide). While the
existing Redatam-Plus can be used as a DOS program under Win- dows
3.1, it really cannot take full advantage of most of the desired
features of Windows. From the point of view of a user, the
inability to work with a mouse is one of the most annoying,
particularly when a mouse is almost mandatory when working with
spatial displays.
THE NEW PROJECT winR+GIS APPLICATIONS
REDATAM-PLUS FOR WINDOWS
An important conclusion from the the previous analysis is that a
major objective of the new Project must be to write a Windows
version of REDATAM-Plus to permit the construction of the desired
applications. This decision is also consistent with the increasing
use of Windows in Latin America and the Caribbean; most new
computers simply come with it installed. The new "version" winR+,
will have a graphical user's interface (GUI) that follows Windows
3.x conventions, simplifying the use of winR+ by new users who are
already familiar with Windows.
An important consideration that must be taken into account in
designing winR+ for use by local and regional authorities, is that
many municipalities and other institutions already have their own
databases, most frequently in dBase format. Therefore, if winR+ is
to help them obtain population information from the census and
other sources, the new system should be capable of using dBase
files without conversion to Redatam-Plus files. For an outline of
the major new and enhanced features planned for winR+, see the
Noticias, Software section of this issue of REDATAM Informa.
While the new CELADE-(UW) Project will create winR+, that
work is simply a necessary step toward the major objective, which
is to develop and test four practical generic applications
requiring population data in the fields of: 1) Health and family
planning; 2) Education; 3) Urban planning; and 4) Tourism
development impact. The applications will be "generic" in
the sense that, while meeting the needs of the specific country
sites where they will be tested, the applications will be useful
elsewhere with minor adaptations. The applications are described in
a later section of this article.
THE WINR+GIS APPLICATIONS "SHELL"
Since many or most end-users only want what they need for their own
problems, and do not wish to learn generalized software, the four
applications created in the Project will "hide" the winR+ and GIS
programs within a shell that, from the user's point of view, is
concerned only with the specific substantive application. On the
other hand, each of the four applications should have a similar
"look and feel" to permit a user knowing one application to use
another and also to give a certain "brand" identification to the
suite of winR+GIS applications.
THE WINR+GIS APPLICATION DEVELOPERS WORKBENCH
Unfortunately, neither the four generic applications planned within
the R+GIS Project, nor any other set of applications are likely to
cover most local development planning problems involving
population data. Furthermore, it is impossible to anticipate all
R+GIS applications or even assure that the four planned are really
quite generic. Consequently, in collaboration with the UW, CELADE
is creating the winR+GIS application developer's building block
workbench, which will provide R+GIS "building blocks" and the
methodology and standardized shell to assemble them into different
applications. The Windows version of Redatam-Plus and the workbench
will be much more modular than the present R+ version, not only
facilitating the development of specific applications, but
hopefully much improving reliability and maintenance. Various GIS,
including pcARC/INFO and MAPINFO for Windows, will be among the
building "blocks" on the workbench (the specific model and its
graphical representation on the screen is presently under
development).
The modules for winR+ and the workbench are being programmed
in the FoxPro for Windows language to the extent possible, with
modules written in Visual C++ and C, when required, taking
advantage of the useable routines already in C from the DOS
version. The FoxPro for Windows code for winR+, with or without an
application, will be compiled in run-time versions so that an
end-user will not be required to purchase a copy of FoxPro for
Windows.
DATABASES FOR WINR+GIS APPLICATIONS
The use of any given winR+GIS application in a practical situation
will require the construction of the necessary winR+ database and
the GIS database. The census data for most LAC countries are
already likely to be available in a DOS R+ database, which winR+
can read (and vice versa); however, in some countries gaining
access to the census may still be a problem. Finding adequate
geo-coded data from the "other" field(s) may be more difficult. For
example, if the problem concerns educational infrastructure, data
will be required on numbers of school rooms, teachers by grade,
etc., along with the geographical location of each school.
Construction of a multidisciplinary R+ database, if necessary, will
always be a major substantive and methodological task. For example,
even making an R+ database of the last two censuses with good
documentation for a municipality involves many difficult problems
and decisions concerning boundary changes and identification codes
to ensure that geographical areas are truly matched.
Each application will also require a digitized GIS database
for the census geography down to the lowest level available.
Normally two or three additional coverages (digitized and coded
maps for a topic such as land use or road network) will be required
to allow the application to develop the alternative scenarios de-
fined by the databases and policy parameters provided by the user.
Given the complexity of constructing reliable data- bases,
each of the four applications developed by UW and CELADE will
define two datasets: 1) The minimum dataset for useful operation of
the application. 2) The desired dataset to permit the full power of
the application to be realized. The experience to date with the
creation of the databases for the four applications to be
developed during the present Project seems to indicate that the
minimum dataset for a given application is likely to be the norm.
It is to be hoped that relevant institutions will begin the work
together to produce the databases required. For example, the
National Statistical Office should supply the digitized census
geography so that the municipalities do not each have to digititze
their own census geography.
USERS OF THE WINR+GIS SYSTEM
From the above discussion, three categories of users are expected
to be involved with the winR+GIS system: a) application end-users,
b) application database makers, and c) application builders. The
first category is the prime target of the R+GIS Project, and will
be the most numerous. The system and applications (at least those
created as part of the Project) will assume two skill levels in
each category.
1) Application end-user of a specific application in a
specific situation.
-Basic: Standard results based only on inputs of parameters
that vary the application conditions.
-Advanced: Direct access to winR+ and the GIS.
2) Application database maker/administrator for a specific
application in a specific situation.
-Intermediate: Create the R+ database and ensure R+ and GIS
coverages integrity.
-Advanced: Also digitizes coverages, etc.
3) Application builder: These persons, normally expected
to be computer programmers, will use the "workbench" to
program new applications for end-users.
-Intermediate: Capable of writing basic FoxPro for Windows
programs.
-Advanced: Capable of writing routines as required for
Visual C++.
THE R+GIS GENERIC APPLICATIONS TO BE DEVELOPED
THE SELECTION OF THE APPLICATIONS
Professor Brent Hall of the University of Waterloo travelled with
CELADE staff in mid-1991 during an early project preparation stage
to four countries known to be actively using REDATAM databases
"Chile, Costa Rica, Trinidad and Tobago and Saint Lucia" to carry
out a needs assessment. This aimed to identify perceived problem
areas at the local level that involve decision making using geo-
graphically referenced population and other data and that could
benefit from using an R+GIS application to help define and
visualize alternatives.
After analyzing the findings, the fields mentioned previously
were selected. Then CELADE, the UW and the national counterparts
defined the specific subject matter for each of the applications:
1) HEALTH AND FAMILY PLANNING
Client accessibility to services and allocation-location of
resources in clinics of the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social,
Costa Rica).
2) EDUCATIONAL PLANNING
Spatial Decision Support System (SDSS) for educational planning in
the Zona Norte of Santiago, Chile: Municipalities of Conchali,
Huechuraba y Recoleta.
3) URBAN PLANNING
Population, land use and social/economic investent spatial planning
for the canton Escazu, San Jose, Costa Rica.
4) TOURISM DEVELOPMENT IMPACT
Assessment of effects of tourism projects on local environment and
population in St. Lucia (with a special focus on small island
countries).
It is planned that each application be developed so that it can
be used with at least two GIS systems, so that potential user
institutions have a certain choice; these are expected to be
pcARC/INFO and MapInfo for Windows. Other GIS may be added later.
It is important to remember that the complexity of any given GIS
will normally be hidden from the end-user, unless he/she wishes to
use the GIS directly. Each of the R+GIS applications is briefly
described in the appendix of this article.
After the R+GIS applications have been tested and corrected in
the field situations, the Project contemplates two regional
workshops in late 1995 for training and dissemination in Latin
America and the Caribbean, respectively.
BEYOND TECHNOLOGY INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF THE
TECHNOLOGY AND DATA TRANSFER The new project is directed
toward making it easier for professionals working in a number of
key local level problem sectors to have adequate access to the data
and technology to facilitate analysis and decision making. However,
meeting practical needs does not guarantee the wide-spread adoption
of the new technology, particularly when the potential users are
widely dispersed within a country, if they are simply provided with
the data and software and left to "sink or swim". The provision of
technical support, involving technical assistance and training,
on call, is necessary to achieve widespread adoption of innovation
and continued usage.
Neither CELADE nor UW have the resources to provide such
support to a single country (e.g., just Chile alone has around 350
municipalities) and much less to all the countries of the Region).
While there are various models for institutionalizing
support to data and technology users, and the situation will vary
by country, the most appropriate initially would seem to be that of
national "self-reliance", which might involve having an appropriate
decentralized governmental agency within a country provide the
support. This might be the National Statistical Office (NSO)
since it is normally the owner of the census data and the most
knowledgeable on their use. In this model, the central NSO would
train technical staff in its regional offices, which in turn
would train municipal and other persons, as well as provid- ing
local technical support for the software and data. As outlined in
the section Who is doing Whatxxx?, the National Statistical
Institute (INE) of Chile, appears to be working towards this model.
Since each comuna (municipality) will be able to obtain its own R+
census sub-database around mid-1994, they have carried out various
workshops to train INE regional staffand municipal authorities.
INE-Chile has also produced a mini-R+ manual for their potential
municipal users. It may be desirable later to produce another
manual with a paper copy of the equivalent of the R+ dictionary,
along with various examples illustrating possible use of the 1992
population and housing census data by the public and private
sectors.
The development strategy based on the transformation of
production with social equity endeavours to create systematic
changes that penetrate the entire society. Institutionalization is
a general problem in the spread and transfer of information
technology it is not just a problem of R+ and the censuses. Social
as well as technical inventiveness at the local, national and
international levels will be required to provide the technical
support required at the local level, and there will be much scope
for horizontal cooperation within and among countries.
For these reasons, the completion of the present project around
the end of 1995 will be only a beginning. The more complex work
lies ahead and, in fact, the Project will end with a external
assessement to develop a strategy to ensure wide dissemination and
effective utilization of the products created within and among the
countries of the Latin American and Caribbean region and elsewhere.
APPENDIX
OUTLINES OF THE R+GIS APPLICATIONS
This Appendix outlines each of the four applications that
the R+GIS Project is presently designing in collaboration with
national institutions. The UW graduate students and CELADE staff
named as responsible for the individual applications, are working,
under the supervision of the authors of this article in their
respective institutions, with their local collabora- tors on the
creation of the databases that the country institutions will use
for practical testing of their respective applications. Needless to
say, the individual applications that emerge at the end of the
field testing may be somewhat different from these descriptions
written fairly early during the Project.
HEALTH AND FAMILY PLANNING Client accessibility to services and
allocation-location of clinic resources. Caja Costarricense de
Seguro Social. Responsible: Mr. Robert Bowerman, UW Ph.D. Graduate
student (Systems Engineering).
This application is concerned with the evaluation and optimizing of
primary health care accessibility, in particular access to maternal
and child care and family planning services, with particular
reference to the clinics in the Central Valley of the Caja
Costarricense de Seguro Social which provides most such health care
in Costa Rica. The Programa Centroamericano de Poblacion (PCP) of
the University of Costa Rica is also collaborating.
A mathematical model is being developed to evaluate
accessibility to the clinics in order to identify areas that have
deficient supply or access to health care, taking into account
various geographical and social factors. The model will also
include methods to help locate new service delivery points. In more
technical terms this application will be based on the development
of a multi-objective facility location optimization model for
primary health care centres with respect to a spatially distributed
target population.
The application will "hide", to the extent possible and
reasonable, the complexity of the model from the normal end-user
while providing facilities for the user to comprehend alternatives
through the visual presentation of results.
Database Population and housing data: The census data for the
Central Valley has been downloaded from the 1984 R+ database; the
lowest geographical level that will be used is the district. The
next census will be conducted in 1994; when ready, the 1984 data
can be replaced by the new information.
Geographical data: The GIS database for the Central Valley contains
locations (points) of all health clinics and use statistics for
1988, the most recent year available. The census canton and
district boundaries are digitized and the areas (polygons) are
coded so that information can be exported from the 1984 census. The
transport network (arcs) are coded by road type and elevations will
be coded to permit a digital elevation model to be created so that
accessibility indicator can take effort.
EDUCATIONAL PLANNING Spatial decision support system for
educational planning. Zona Norte of Santiago, Chile. Responsible:
Mr. Gunnar Hilgartner, UW Masters Degree student (Geography).
A policy of decentralization in some countries has led to the
municipalization of various social services. This came about in
education in Chile during the 1980's through the transfer of public
school administration at the primary and secondary school levels
from regional authorities to the municipalities. Whether or not the
municipal schools run a deficit or not (an even more so if they do,
as in poorer areas like the Zona Norte of Santiago), efficient
management supposes that there is a certain balance between the
educational resources (supply) and the number of students in
different age groups potentially available (demand). Furthermore,
since schools exist as points in space to which student move to and
from their homes, the problem has important spatial components and
even more so if equity and time considerations are included. While
final decisions on the allocation of educational resources will
involve political and other considerations, those taking the
decisions should be aware of the consequences when deciding among
alternatives. This is the objective of the Spatial Deci- sion
Support System (SDSS) for school planning that is being developed
as a R+GIS application in collaboration with the municipal
authorities of three of the northern comunas, Conchali, Huechuraba
and Recoleta, a NGO concerned with education (PIIE).
Database Population and housing data: The 1982 census data is
available for the North Zone of Santiago, comprising the three
comunas of Conchali, Huechuraba and Recoleta. The 1992 data is
expected to be available in a R+ database very shortly.
Geographical data: Single line street networks have been created as
separate map layers from the census maps of 1982 and 1992, and the
blocks defined by the streets coded with the 1982 and 1992 R+
codes. The "demand" for education is initially being estimated by
using population census data by school age (pre-school, primary and
secondary) exported from R+ to the blocks; the children were then
proportionally assigned to block faces, assuming that the popu-
lation on a street face is proportional to its length. Education
data: To obtain information on educational "supply" a coverage has
been digitized with all schools in the 3 comunas, using information
on school location and characteristics from the Programa
Interdisciplinario de Investigacion en Educacion (PIIE), an NGO
which is collaborating with the pro- ject and the comunas.
URBAN PLANNING Population, land use and social/economic investment
planning. Canton of Escazu, San Jose, Costa Rica Responsible: Ms.
Alejandra Silva, CELADE consultant in GIS. This application
will attempt to assist the municipal authorities of Escazu, Costa
Rica, and elsewhere understand existing land utilization and orient
future use within a Plan Regulador. The capacity of local
governments to respond efficiently to urban spread on the periphery
and to demands for new infrastructure resulting from urban growth
makes it necessary to have easy access to: a) the requisite
information, a large part of which is spatial in nature, and b) the
technology for managing the spatial and numerical data. Municipal
authorities on an urban fringe, like Escazu, might want to
determine the effects of alternative uses of land (variations of
agricultural vs. urban) or the population subject to natural
hazards (part of Escazu is on a mountainside), or to consider
alterative social infrastructure investments taking into account
questions of equity as well as rentability.
Database Population and housing data: The census data for the
canton of Escazu has been downloaded from the 1984 R+ database.
Geographical data: The following coverages are in digitized and
coded coverages: a) Census geography to the lowest level, segmento.
b) Hydrologic networks. c) Road network. d) Elevations c) House
locations.
Landuse map: Actual rural and urban land use. Natural hazards:
Natural hazards have digitized and coded from a paper map.
TOURISM DEVELOPMENT IMPACT Assessment of effects of tourism
projects on local environment and population in north western Saint
Lucia
Responsible: 1) Robert Feick, UW Ph.D. graduate student. 2) Stephen
Kilburn, UW Masters. graduate student.
(Both Geography) The island countries of the
Caribbean while trying to achieve sustainable economic development
with social equity, must take into account their limited land areas
and small populations. Smallness makes entire countries extremely
vulnerable to social, economic and environmental stress due to
natural or human factors. Consequently, anticipation of the
consequences of different actions is even more vital than in larger
and more populated countries. Since most of the Caribbean islands
are very dependent on the tourist industry, it is important that
tools be available to assess the human and biophysical impacts of
new or existing localized tourism projects (e.g., a new hotel com-
plex). The objective is to develop R+GIS applica- tions to help
identify sites most suitable for tourism development subject to
national tourism and other planning objectives. At the same time,
the applications will help automate census planning, implementa-
tion, and mapping for the year 2000 round, while increasing the
usefulness of the 1991 (and previous) censuses for analysis and
planning.
Database Population and housing data: R+ census databases are
available for 1980 and 1991.
Geographical data: Using the information provided by Saint Lucia,
the database was created with cadastral 20,000 parcels coded by
parcel identifier for the north west littoral of the island and
linked to a land registry database. Coverages have also been
created for all roads, streams and for elevations, from which a
slope coverage has been created. Current land use will also be
digitized.
=================================================================
REDATAM REQUEST FORM
=================================================================
Minimum equipment: PC-fully compatible microcomputer; 640K RAM;
DOS 3.1 or higher; High-density floppy disk drive; 7MB available
for R+ and test data base.
Indicate size of diskette desired: __ 3.5" or __ 5.25"
=================================================================
No. US$ each Total
=================================================================
__ R+ Demonstration Free
-----------------------------------------------------------------
__ R+ v2.01 complete __Eng __Span US a/
-----------------------------------------------------------------
__ R+ v2.01 upgrade __Eng __Span US$15
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Total US$:
Name:
_______________________________________________________________
Title:
______________________________________________________________
Division, Institution:
______________________________________________
Address:
____________________________________________________________
City, Province, Cntry:
______________________________________________
Telephone: ___________________ Fax:
___________________________
=================================================================
__Check included (US$ made out to CELADE) __Please bill me
Send to ECLAC/CELADE. Casilla 91, Santiago, Chile.
Tel: (562) 210-2002 FAX: (562) 208-0252
NOTES:
a/ Prices include airmail (if by courier, according to cost)
US$ 75 Latin America and the Caribbean: Governmental
institutions, educational institutions, NGOs and other non-profit
organizations, and international agencies (In Chile: 2.5 UF).
US$ 90 Other developing countries: Gov institutions, educational
institutions, NGOs and international organizations.
US$ 90 Developed countries: NGO's.
US$ 250 Commercial firms in any country; all institutions in
developed countries except NGOs.
For further information, contact:
Arthur Conning, CELADE, Casilla 91, Santiago, Chile
Fax: (562)+208-0252 Tel: (562)+210-2002