THE Citizen Security Secretariat (CSS), in partnership with the Planning Institute of Jamaica and the National Council on Violence Prevention, convened a Data Management Lunch and Learn seminar geared at bolstering the data management architecture of critical ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) that are delivering social intervention activities under the auspices of the Citizen Security Plan (CSP).

Dr Donavon Johnson, the data scientist at the CSS, indicated that the seminar’s purpose was to provide the avenue for conducting a landscape assessment of data management across the entities delivering social investment activities across the island.

According to Dr Johnson, “We want entities to be more open to sharing data and using data to guide decision-making so that Government actions around social investment can be more intelligible, enriched, and effective.”

The Citizen Security Secretariat was established to monitor and evaluate the delivery of social investment activities under the CSP. The secretariat monitors over 100 social investment indicators and reports on their progress to a Citizen Security Business Group chaired by the deputy prime minister.

The CSP was designed to streamline the delivery of social intervention activities in Jamaica’s most vulnerable and volatile communities so as to increase safer spaces, reduce crime and violence, and improve human/community development.

Executive Director Dianne McIntosh noted that, while there have been successes of the CSP so far, there remains a challenge in acquiring the data needed to see the full potential of social intervention in Jamaica. She noted that: “We cannot do this without data. Data is the first stop on this journey to transform and change the data culture. The social transformation has to begin with driving a whole new data landscape.”

McIntosh affirmed the support of the key MDAs and lauded the support and commitment of the minister of national security in driving the delivery of the Citizen Security Plan.

For his part, Professor Lloyd Waller, of the Department of Government at The University of the West Indies, said: “This is an important undertaking by the CSS, given the importance of data to decision-making today. The initiative will see the harmonisation of data capture, access, management, and dissemination for effective security management by the Government.”