Recently, 'information' has been viewed as an essential requirement for effective and efficient management, and as a basis for medium and long term planning. The establishment of 'information systems' and the introduction of 'the new information technologies' have been presented as solutions to problems of unavailability of adequate data on key areas of policy concern in many countries. Attempts to increase the usefulness of information systems regard to either the detailed organizational structure of the institutions concerned, the true resource costs of additional data collection activities or their impact on existing procedures. They frequently entail very strong, and usually unexamined, assumptions about effective and sustainable implementation, in particular with respect to the cooperation of those at lower levels within the institutional hierarchy. Indeed, they may often involve the collection of a considerable volume of additional data in situations where the quality of data already collected seems suspect. Critically, much of the discussion on information systems tends to divorce information from other aspects of decision-making processes. Thus, the mechanisms required for information to play a serious role in policy formation often do not exist.
