nextI like ProMS. But I know very few people who don’t complain about ProMS. I
also complained, seven years ago[1], when ProMS came to the field.
Many still think that ProMS is the evil wasting valuable staff time, preventing
us from generating major lessons and providing much needed policy input into
PRSPs and SWAps.
But, as I have learned, ProMS is nothing else than the electronification of our
business processes. ProMS asks us to look at a screen where we otherwise would
look at a pile of transactional paper. Damning ProMS is shooting the messenger.
But the discussion will soon be over. Because even IT systems will have to be
harmonized among agencies, or so I think. With joint programming, common
services, common offices and, perhaps, common programmes, there will either be
ProMS, or there will be the UNDP-favoured Atlas.
Not taking a decision soon about the long-term future of IT systems in the UN is
tantamount to deciding to sink, over the next couple of years, millions of
dollars into the development of redundant information technology.
So we don’t have much more time to make up our mind whether we love ProMS, or we
don’t.
[1] See: ProMS, the Fridge and the Elephant, staff news # 4, 1998
(11 March 2005)
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