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Poverty Portal is an information sharing tool that acts as an online portal for practitioners and researchers who want to share or use information, and will pull together macro and micro level information on poverty in Sri Lanka. By acting as a central hub of information, a virtual library that anyone online can access, the portal should help improve dissemination of existing research, help avoid repetition of such research, and identify research gaps. The need for better information systems was further identified in a User Needs Survey (2005) conducted by CEPA, which highlighted the need to facilitate information sharing amongst practitioners for a more informed decision making processes. The findings of the study emphasise the need to make information much easier to access, decentralized in its availability using the resources on poverty currently available in Sri Lanka .
The Poverty Portal should provide a platform through which practitioners including government officers, researchers and students can access more resources available in Sri Lanka and hopefully encourage more efficient use of both quantitative and qualitative data.
Goal
To improve the understanding and analysis of poverty through enhanced dissemination of information thereby encouraging informed decision-making on poverty reduction efforts in Sri Lanka .
Objectives
- To act as a channel or reference source for need-based information provision to practitioners and researchers in Sri Lanka .
- To combine innovative, interactive and user-friendly channels for information dissemination.
- To consolidate macro and micro level information on poverty in Sri Lanka .
Expected Outcomes
The Poverty Portal is unique in that it presents a portal for accessing information on poverty in Sri Lanka and is expected to have the following impacts. It will: - Provide an overview of existing information on poverty in Sri Lanka and highlight gaps in knowledge and information, including areas for further research.
- Systematically compile primary and secondary qualitative and quantitative information resources.
- Provide a wider user-base access to information produced by government institutions, universities, think tanks and other non-governmental organizations.
- Provide stakeholders with the opportunity to collaborate in facilitating information sharing, thereby increasing ownership and usability.
- Encourage information flow to decentralized levels in a form that would enhance usability rather than creating further constraints when working to reduce poverty in Sri Lanka .
- Offer users the opportunity to express their requirements from such an information collation system, further facilitating ownership and maximising usage.
- Provide the space for conceptual thinking on poverty analysis to be presented in a user-friendly format using the innovations of information technology, bringing together professionals in both fields.
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