Role of GIS in Social Sector Planning: Can Developing Countries Benefit from the Examples of Primary Health Care (PHC) Planning in Britain?

Social sector planning requires rational approaches where community needs are identified by referring to relative deprivation
among localities and resources are allocated to address inequalities. Geographical information system (GIS) has been widely
argued and used as a base for rational planning for equal resource allocation in social sectors around the globe. Devolution
of primary health care is global strategy that needs pains taking efforts to implement it. GIS is one of the most important
tools used around the world in decentralization process of primary health care. This paper examines the scope of GIS in social
sector planning by concentration on primary health care delivery system in Pakistan. The work is based on example of the UK’s
decentralization process and further evidence from US. This paper argues that to achieve benefits of well informed decision
making to meet the communities’ needs GIS is an essential tool to support social sector planning and can be used without any
difficulty in any environment. There is increasing trend in the use of Health Management Information System (HMIS) in Pakistan
with ample internet connectivity which provides well established infrastructure in Pakistan to implement GIS for health care,
however there is need for change in attitude towards empowering localities especially with reference to decentralization of
decision making. This paper provides GIS as a tool for primary health care planning in Pakistan as a starting point in defining
localities and preparing locality profiles for need identification that could help developing countries in implementing the
change.