· High appreciation for the EMI Systems work in the education project in the Philippines by Brother Andrew Gonzales, the former Secretary of Education. 

· High appreciation for the EMI Systems work in the school mapping project in Jordan by His Excellency, Dr. Khaled Toukan, the Ministry of Education. 

· The United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID) recommended EMI Systems to bidding contractors in Serbia as having the most advanced approach in social mapping at this time. EMI was recommended to reputable contractors like Oxford Policy Management, Birks, Sinclair and Associates, PLS Ramboll and the British Council. 

· A DFID Programme Memorandum maintains that while international experience suggests that it is not always possible to produce locality-based indexes from pre-existing census and administrative data, with the application of MapDecision it is possible to develop policy relevant proxies for indicators such as ‘welfare’, ‘socio-economic development’ and ‘quality of life’. 

· Birks, Sinclair and Associates appreciated the local trainees participation in an EMI Systems workshop in social geo-mapping in Serbia as the most intense and dedicated they have seen in 150-200 workshops during an entire career. The principals of UK firm Birks, Sinclair and Associates appreciated that MapDecision was “the most user-friendly and robust software he had seen” and was able to use it in the workshop held by EMI without actually reading the manuals and tutorials. In a letter to EMI Systems, they wrote: “we regard your work in Serbia as exemplary. It can be used as a demonstration of good project practice, and, a good example of how geo mapping works in practice.” 

· The participants in the workshop in Zlatibor, Serbia assessed the MapDecision approach as an invaluable tool for the local governments to 1) assess the situation; 2) validate projects criteria and priorities; 3) “objective” base for decisions; 4) lobby for decentralized decisions; 5) advocacy and negotiation tool; 6) influence and monitor social policy; 7) target vulnerable groups; 8) prioritize problems and interventions; 9) justify grant proposal, and 10) advertise the local community to investors. 

· In a message to Birks Sinclair office, Dragan Bozic, the Project Coordinator and IT Systems Designer of the Serbian Information Technology and Internet Agency (ITIA) said they found the geo-mapping software very useful, and they would like to discuss further project cooperation for making the software and the system available to all interested parties in Serbia, in partnership with EMI Systems and The Standing Conference of Municipalities. They “are interested in partnership building with EMI Systems for developing and implementing Geo-Mapping software as a common analytical and geo mapping tool for any kind of numerical data”. 

· Quote from Birks Sinclair letter to EMI Systems, Inc. (April 2004): “I wanted you both to know that the team in Uzice has been approached by the local regional development office who wanted to pay for the privilege of using the geo mapping system files etc. As you know, it’s a DFID project, so we cant charge anybody for anything. But it is a real feather in your caps...well done!” During a project review mission, DFID recorded 17 MapDecision applications in the four Serbian municipalities to justify grant application. 

· In a USAID-financed education project in Benin, where EMI Systems implements the management-finance-information systems component as a sub to Creative Associates (CAII), the continuous presence of high level Ministry officials in a two-day seminar held by EMI was reported by the local specialists as unprecedented. 

· In the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education in Benin, three departments asked for immediate deployment of the MapDecision system and training of their specialists in using it to solve problems and monitor performance. The Deputy Superintendent of Schools in Natitingou, Atacora-Donga said he was stunned (“sidéré”) by the potential of the system, which can be used locally to allocate scarce resources and for schools helping each other. The Department of Planning asked for an extension of the project to cover all school districts in the country. 

· In November 2004, the USAID Benin and the EQUIPE PROJECT have taken the initiative of sharing the MapDecision approach and software developed by EMI Systems with IFESH, World Education, World Learning, CARE and UNICEF to start with. 

· One of the trainees in a USAID-financed metropolitan area strategic planning exercise in Iasi, Romania (under the governance and democracy project GRASP contracted by Development Alternatives, Inc.) said lit.: "ultimately, what one achieves with MapDecision is a change of mentality". Immediate implementation of MapDecision was requested by mayors of the metropolitan area, planners, NGO’s and local IT companies. Other cities in Romania followed suit, including the capital Bucharest whose Mayor sent two letters to USAID Romania requesting assistance for strategic planning from the on-going project. 

· The Mayor of Iasi (Gheorghe Nichita) and the President of the Iasi County Council (Lucian Flaiser) were delighted with MapDecision analytical results and requested the software installed on their laptops. Flaiser, who is also President of the Metropolitan Council, stated publicly: “We need to install the intranet and the MapDecision instrument as soon as possible; this is the only way to start to work together, this is the only way to approach metropolitan development”. 

· The Chief Architect of the Iasi County (Mircea Grigorovschi) was amazed at “how a software system can improve people’s lives”. The Iasi metropolitan area trainees commented that “all Statistical Offices in Romania should use MapDecision in order to provide a wealth of Census information in a user-friendly and results-oriented fashion”.