Government of Timor-Leste

On 14 and 15 May 2015, the head of Department of Program and Technical Support, National Directorate of Water Services from the Ministrty of Public Works, Transport and Communication, Martinus Nahak, attended the International WASH and ICT conference in Washington DC, USA.

He was accompanied by his counterpart from the Australian Aid Program BESIK. The meeting was the first of its kind to discuss the Information and Communications Technology (ICT), specifically in regards to the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector.

During the conferece, Martinus Nahak presented the SIBS (Sistema Bee no Saneamentu) to the other delegates, who ended up praising the commitment of the Government of Timor-Leste to provide a comprehensive information system and sustainable.

The SIBS is an integrated system that uses data from various sources to analyse the provision of services and community access to these services, for planning, budgeting and execution. This system is a wholly government owned system supported by the Australian Aid program BESIK (Bee no Saneamentu Iha Komunidade).

The WASH and ICT conference was also used to launch an international initiative, called the Water Point Data Exchange (WPDx), to standardise and map water point data. The WPDx standards are met by SIBS data and Timor-Leste’s data is available internationally via this system.

Apart from putting Timor-Leste on the map at the WASH and ICT conference, new technologies were investigated and new contacts were made to investigate the best and most appropriate technologies for Timor-Leste to continue and sustain the work already done.

The conference was attended by major organisations in the WASH sector, donors and various government officials, as well as new technology developers.