THE United Nations is using information technology "health checks" designed in the North-East to help businesses in developing countries.

Six UN advisors from Morocco and Ethiopia spent a fortnight at Durham Business School learning how to use the Biz-KIT diagnostic package which has benefited hundreds of countries in this region to date.

The international business advisors have been provided with a specially-tailored and translated version of the checks to start working with businesses in their home countries.

"This diagnostic package has been honed and developed with small and medium companies in the North-East over the past few years and has proved very successful," said Biz-KIT's Dean Maragh, who has been in charge of the training.

The check involves an expert advisor working with a company's owners and managers to see how the IT system needs to be changed to help develop their business objectives.

The advisor can then recommend a course of action and helps companies learn how to do it themselves.

Mr Maragh said: "In developing countries, many problems businesses face are obviously different, which is why the advisors wanted the system tweaked.

"But the central issues of how companies should organise the buying and running of their IT systems remains the same - and even more vital in parts of the world where money and expertise is in short supply."

He said Biz-KIT's core philosophy of using IT experts who also have first-hand knowledge of running a business has proved invaluable.

"These advisors will clearly need to help their client businesses with much more than straightforward IT."