Information System for the Ethiopian Rural Energy Development and Promotion Centre
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Date
2000-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Energy is an important economic resource used in all sectors of the economy of a country.
The form and type of this resource is used to categories into modern and traditional, primary
and secondary and renewable and non-renewable. The level of economic development of
countries determines the form and type of energy they use, the per capita energy consumption
and the proportion of energy allocated among different sectors. Developing countries like
Ethiopia largely use traditional type of energy to fuel their economy.
The over exploitation of traditional energy sources brings about such problems as reduction
of land fertility that causes low yield of agricultural products, climatic change and disturbs
the friendliness of the environment. Research and development activities are targeted towards
alleviating problems that a country faces . In Ethiopia, the Ethiopian Rural Energy
Development and Promotion Centre is a parastatal under the Ministry of Mines and Energy
whose goal is to alleviate problems in the energy area by conducting research.
In order for individuals engaged in energy research, planning and decision-making could be
able to attain the desired result, they have to be provided with the relevant, timely and
accurate information generated from energy production, conversion and consumption. This
invokes for the development of an information system. To this end, this study investigated
the existing information system, user information requirements, problems of the existing
system and users through interview, questionnaire survey and document analysis.
The survey indicated that users require venous energy and sociology-economic information
produced internally and externally. It is also pointed out that users had problems of getting
accurate, reliable, adequate and timely information and the existing information service was
not also in a position to meet users' requirements. Therefore, a prototype database is
designed and recommendations are made.
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Keywords
Information Science