During November and December 2021, a series of workshops was held for representatives of the Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure, organized through three modules. The goal of the workshops was to improve the capacity of employees in the Ministry to use the Geographic Information System (GIS) to monitor the state in substandard Roma settlements in Serbia. The workshops were prepared in accordance with the previously conducted analysis of the capacity of employees in the Ministry to use this tool.
GIS database enables the Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure to monitor key indicators of the situation in substandard settlements, easily search and analyze data on living conditions in these settlements, in order to make appropriate strategic decisions and create strategies to improve living conditions of Roma community at national and local level.
The GIS database contains the exact location of each substandard Roma settlement on an orthoimage with delineated boundaries, as well as data on the approximate number of residential buildings and inhabitants in the settlement, age of the settlement, location, materials from which the buildings were made, status of infrastructure networks in settlement (water supply, sewerage, electrical network, public lighting, street network, heating), planning documentation and the degree of legalization of facilities in the settlement.
Going through the characteristics and structure of geospatial database, geographical and cartographic basis of GIS software, ways of collecting and updating data using GIS technology, using google service as a base layer, georeferencing, merging and separating geometric primitives and working with cartographic projections, and many other applications, the participants of the training, in addition to the theoretical basis, additionally through practical exercises had the opportunity to get acquainted with the contents and functionalities of the geographic information system, and thus gain knowledge and skills for its use.