MSSD, World Bank Train MDAs Staff on Nigeria Mineral Resources
The Ministry of Mines and Steel Development in conjunction with the World Bank has organised an advanced training for some staff of the Ministries and Departmental Agencies (MDAs) on Nigeria Mineral Resources Decision Support System (NMRDSS).
The training which is taking place at the Digital Bridge Institute, Abuja, was organised by the Mineral Sector Support for Economic Diversification (MinDiver); a World Bank assisted project with the main purpose of building the capacity of participants and making them focal points of NMRDSS in their various ministries.
A statement yesterday by the Assistant Director of Press of the ministry in Abuja, hinted that NMRDSS is a web based decision support system which helps users to analyse mineral resources occurrences and mineral resources corridors developed by RMSI Private Limited from India.
In his opening remarks, The Project Coordinator, Mr. Linus Adie noted that, “NMRDSS simply call Decision Support System (DSS) centralises the collection and collation of mineral data from relevant Government Departments.”
According to him, “The system serves to improve decision making for the mining sector and infrastructure development planning as it integrates spatial data on mineral licenses, infrastructure, and other parameters such as population density and land use.”
Adie explained that the data would facilitate analysis and prioritisation of areas for socioeconomic growth and development based on the availability of mineral assets in the country.
Speaking further, he said that the DSS is fully multisectoral and would serve for planning future land-use development, agriculture, transport, oil and gas, power and overall industrial and urban development envisaged under the central corridor and other future planned corridors.
He however, welcomed participants and urged them to attend the training very conscientiously considering the enormous benefits the country stands to benefit from their knowledge.
“We are doing this in the interest of the country, in the interest of the Mining sector, it is good for you, and it is good for the nation. We are very pleased to have you back; we have progressed a lot after the first training session, the DSS is online at the moment and we felt it is time to bring you back for the advanced training. DSS is a component for designing economic corridor and am sure during this training all these systems will be exposed to you.”