From Data Gaps to Impact: Key Insights from the VIFAA Program

Over the last six years, Development Gateway: an IREX Venture, together with its partners AfricaFertilizer (AFO) and Wallace & Associates, collaborated to implement the Visualizing Insights on Fertilizer for African Agriculture (VIFAA) Program, which created dashboards and tools that improve, manage, and visualize fertilizer data in Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has the lowest fertilizer usage in the world, which needs to be improved to replace soil nutrients lost through crop production. VIFAA partners have worked with the public and private sectors to strengthen data collection, analysis, and use, encouraging informed fertilizer use across the region.

In the program’s final year (2024), leading up to its conclusion in November, the team undertook a “program learning process”  to reflect on outcomes, challenges, and successes through internal interviews. This blog captures five key learnings, which we hope will guide similar programs aiming to bridge data gaps in agricultural development.

1. Participatory Approach as a Success Driver

VIFAA’s success is rooted in its participatory approach, involving stakeholders from the fertilizer sector from the outset of the program in each design and implementation phase. Rather than a one-size-fits-all solution, VIFAA emphasized co-design and customization to meet the specific needs of each of the 8 countries it supported. Fertilizer Technical Working Groups (FTWGs), organized by our local partner, AfricaFertilizer (AFO), facilitated this process. These groups brought together the private sector, customs, non-profit organizations, and the government to define relevant data indicators and validate data for each country’s dashboard.

The result is that each country’s VIFAA dashboard reflects local needs and realities. For instance, the Mozambique dashboard includes transit data visualizations to support fertilizer flow through trade corridors, while Nigeria’s dashboard displays locally blended NPK (nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K)) data. This tailored approach, though resource-intensive, strengthened buy-in from diverse stakeholders, providing a robust foundation for the dashboards’ continued use and sustainability.

Lesson: Co-designing with end users is crucial, especially in multi-country programs, as it fosters stakeholder ownership and enhances program longevity.

2. Building Trust with the Private Sector

In the sensitive fertilizer sector, private stakeholders are often reluctant to share data. Despite this challenge, VIFAA included the private sector in its participatory approach. To address this, VIFAA used non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) to ensure privacy and build trust. This was key, particularly in countries like Nigeria, where private companies comprise a significant market share.

The successful use of NDAs encouraged strong private-sector participation, granting access to critical data and leading private companies to see the value of the dashboards, resulting in financial investments in their development.

Lesson: Building trust through confidentiality measures, such as NDAs, is one approach for securing private sector participation and access to sensitive data. This trust can also lead to long-term collaboration and financial investment in data tools and platforms from private companies.

3. Adapting Engagement Strategies to Country Context

Each VIFAA country presented unique realities, shaped by its market structure and stakeholder landscape. For instance, Nigeria’s fertilizer market is primarily driven by private companies, whereas Kenya’s market is mainly government-controlled. VIFAA adapted its engagement strategies to align with these dynamics, ensuring that stakeholders across the public and private sectors were meaningfully involved.

Some environments proved more challenging than others, often due to resistance from key stakeholders. This resistance stemmed from factors such as competition over market share, concerns about data quality control, lack of trust between public and private actors, fears around data misuse, and limited understanding of how shared data could benefit the sector and individual companies. This highlighted the importance of thorough upfront scoping, stakeholder mapping, and relationship-building. 

These lessons can guide future programs decide which countries to operate in and refine early-stage interventions. Additionally, it is crucial to set clear expectations when implementing complex programs across multiple countries, recognizing that priorities, timelines, and approaches will vary. An adaptive strategy should guide the initial phases and be embedded throughout the program’s change management approach.

A key outcome of this adaptive approach was the establishment of a dedicated fund to support new data collection efforts. This enabled VIFAA to move beyond relying solely on existing data, proactively addressing critical data gaps in each country.

Lesson: Context-sensitive engagement and adaptive strategies are essential in multi-country programs to build solid and sustainable partnerships and achieve targeted program outcomes.

4. Pioneering Innovations in Data Collection

To enhance data collection efficiency and overcome the limitations of traditional methods, VIFAA employed an innovative approach combining satellite imagery and algorithmic modeling in Nigeria and Ghana. This approach was designed to create crop-specific fertilizer maps, which could be especially beneficial in markets where ground-level data collection is costly and infrequent.

While challenges remain in implementing this method, particularly with on-the-ground validation, it represents an important step toward more efficient data collection. By piloting such forward-thinking methods, VIFAA has demonstrated the potential for technology to fill critical data gaps and provide actionable insights in agriculture. 

Lesson: Programs can significantly increase data coverage and utility by integrating cutting-edge technologies, and sustained investment in local partnerships is essential for successful implementation and validation.

5. Planning for Long-Term Sustainability and Capacity Building

As VIFAA’s end date approached, one pressing challenge was ensuring that local partners like AFO had the technical capacity to maintain and expand the dashboards. While AFO has strong sectoral expertise, sustaining and upgrading complex data dashboards requires specialized technical skills. This highlights the importance of incorporating capacity-building activities from the outset to enable local ownership.

The VIFAA team began capacity-building efforts with AFO. but recognized the need to further embed technical expertise within the team to manage complex tech components independently and build on existing capabilities.

Lesson: Programs should plan for capacity-building activities from the start, including technical training and simplified processes that enable local partners to maintain and adapt tools independently.

Reflections and Takeaways

The VIFAA program leaves us with valuable lessons for bridging data gaps and driving meaningful, data-informed change in agriculture. Collaboration with stakeholders during the design process ensures tools reflect local needs, building ownership, and sustainability. Establishing trust with private-sector partners through measures like NDAs opens access to critical data while fostering deeper collaboration. Tailoring approaches to fit each country’s unique context enhances the relevance and impact of solutions. At the same time, innovative methods, such as satellite imagery and modeling, address persistent data challenges and unlock new insights. Finally, investing in local capacity from the start ensures that partners can maintain and expand tools long after the program concludes. Together, these lessons highlight the importance of collaboration, adaptability, innovation, and long-term planning in creating lasting change.