The machine in the desert: lessons from the design and implementation of a computer system for the Sudanese Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning

Information management is a critical problem for development planning. It is an especially difficult issue for those Third World planning ministries which must adapt to the escalating demands for information posed by a proliferation of donors and multilateral agencies. Yet, effective information management is crucial if domestic policy makers are to be able either to plan for or to monitor the performance of externally-funded development projects. Microcomputer-based management information systems are now being implemented in a wide variety of settings to deal with these problems. The present paper reports on the development of such a system in the Sudan. From this case study, lessons are drawn for future management information system implementations in ‘system-poor' technical environments and organisational contexts highly dependent on external funding sources.