We are proud to have launched the VIFAA dashboard in partnership with Africafertilizer.org (AFO), the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC), the Kenya Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, county governments, numerous private sector companies, and development partners.

Since Development Gateway: An IREX Venture’s (DG’s) founding, we have prioritized working closely with multiple stakeholders—including everyone from local technical experts to government ministries and global partners—when developing digital solutions and gathering data. Through our Tobacco Control Data Initiative (TCDI) program and its sister program Data on Youth and Tobacco in Africa (DaYTA), we have learned that creating governance structures, such as advisory boards or steering committees, is one approach to ensuring that digital solutions appropriately meet stakeholders’ needs and foster future engagement from them. In this blog, we explore three insights on how governance structures can advance buy-in with individual stakeholders while connecting them to one another.  

Why Governance Structures?

Governance structures—which are best practice to have when conducting primary research—have been essential to DG’s tobacco control work, because many of our stakeholders have indicated their desire to be included throughout program implementation and not just at the end. Several have echoed the common refrain: “You can’t do something for us without us.” We’ve also found that governance structures help coordinate collaboration across our stakeholders, especially since we have a group of stakeholders with very different backgrounds, expertise, and areas of interest in our tobacco control work. These stakeholders also all have different perspectives and varied ways in which they engage with our work. Therefore, DG has formed various governance structures in both our TCDI program and DaYTA program. 

The Role of Governance Structures in TCDI and DaYTA

DG formed two advisory boards in the first phase of TCDI: one in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and one in Zambia. These advisory boards ensure that stakeholders are updated when the program meets key milestones, including when data, needs assessments, and research protocol are validated; the boards also supported the launch of illicit trade studies in the DRC and in Zambia.

DG’s successful implementation of these governance structures in TCDI paved the way for the formation of the following governance bodies to support DaYTA:

• A new Advisory Board in the DRC (building off the one from TCDI),
• The Survey Implementation Group and the Youth Advisory Group in Nigeria, and
• The Research Advisory Committee in Kenya. 

All of these structures have a similar composition and a shared mandate; each one consists of a small group of technical experts who provide technical direction and advice on the research implementation on youth tobacco use in Kenya, Nigeria, and the DRC.

DG also formed a steering committee in the DRC. Its purview is more strategic and less technical relative to the advisory board; it is led by a high-level public official from DRC’s Ministry of Health and includes stakeholders from civil society organizations, government, academia, and partners in tobacco control (like the World Health Organization) who are working to align the research with government policy.

Additionally, to ensure coordination across countries, we also convened a meeting of the full DaYTA consortium with representatives from all three countries—in-person to start, then a mix of virtual and in-person at key program milestones.

These governance structures have proved successful in giving stakeholders a clearly defined space in which to engage—both in a country-specific and cross-country manner. As we’ve implemented and improved our approach to these governance structures across TCDI and DaYTA, we’ve gathered three insights on how these structures can be beneficial for stakeholders and project implementers alike.   

We are thrilled to announce that the Kenya Fertilizer Dashboard, under the Visualizing Insights for African Agriculture (VIFAA) program is live and available to the public.

Click to visit the new VIFAA Kenya website

Over the last year, Development Gateway has worked in close partnership with Africafertilizer.org(AFO), the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC), the Kenya Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, County governments, numerous private sector companies, and development partners to understand the cycle of demand, supply, and use of Kenya’s fertilizer data. Together we have co-designed a dashboard to address key decision-making needs, prioritizing data such as fertilizer price, production and consumption data, and identifying new opportunities to collaborate in closing data gaps.

The interactive, user-friendly site enables users to:

• View key data on fertilizer price, use, availability, and policy in one place;
• Interact with different products and crops across years of data; and
• Download data in a variety of formats.

The Kenya Dashboard is the first of three, with dashboards for Nigeria and Ghana soon to follow. Check back for further details!

For a deeper dive into the indicators on the dashboard, read blog 1 and blog 2 in this series.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Kenya Fertilizer Dashboard, please contact Charlene Migwe cmigwe@developmentgateway.org or Vinisha Bhatia-Murdach vbhatia@developmentgateway.org. This work has been supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Previously, we talked about the importance of price, policy, consumption, and availability sub-indicators that inform the high-level indicator called Kilograms per Hectare (Kg/Ha) or more formally referred to as the National Average Fertilizer Consumption. In advance of the first VIFAA country dashboard launch next week, we will explore the importance of and how we source accurate and reliable data for each of the indicators. This is a crucial step in making data available in a way that stakeholders can use to inform their decisions.

Source: Fertilizer Technical Working Group (FTWG)
Analysis by: Africafertilizer.org

Why is accessing reliable consumption data important but challenging?

The Kg/Ha or National Average Fertilizer Consumption indicator is crucial to benchmark a country’s fertilizer use with its neighbors, the rest of the world, and in a historical context to understand year on year progress. At a high level, the indicator, Kg/Ha, relies on two critical pieces of information that are difficult to acquire. First, the numerator (Kg) equates to the total fertilizer consumed in a calendar year. Second, the denominator (Ha) equates to how much arable land was utilized during the same time frame.

For now, let’s focus on the numerator (total fertilizer consumed) and why this data is so difficult to acquire, despite being one of the most important pieces of information sought by stakeholders. This information relies on data such as how much fertilizer was produced domestically, how much was imported, how much was exported, how much was consumed during the year, as well as the amount of fertilizer held in storage for the next farming season. When the various data sets remain in silos, government, and private sector market actors are not able to make decisions that ensure there are no supply shortages and agricultural production shortfalls. Surveying all the supply-chain participants and smallholder farmers in a given country would be one solution, but is simply not possible. Even if it were, the process could be riddled with response biases that make it difficult to acquire accurate information. Thus, fertilizer consumption data has to be triangulated from multiple sources.

Where Does the VIFAA Program Get the Necessary Fertilizer Data for its Dashboards?

Keeping in mind the case study of Nabada, early in the program we realized that if VIFAA dashboards are to be used in decision making, they need a strong data provider with deep roots in public and private sector partnerships to access quality data. Therefore, in 2019, the International Fertilizer Development Center’s (IFDC) AfricaFertilizer.Org (AFO) initiative joined the VIFAA program and AFO is now the main source of data for VIFAA dashboards. VIFAA- AFO partnership has been crucial in ensuring that data from both the public and private sector are brought forward and reliably sourced in the dashboards.

AFO was started in 2009 to address the gaps in fertilizer data on availability and market information in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) with the goal of increasing fertilizer nutrient use to 50Kg/Ha. Over the years, AFO has worked to consistently collect, process, and publish official national statistics on production, trade, consumption, and price.

As the case study of Nabada highlights above, many stakeholders have information about how much fertilizer was consumed in a given year, but in their own silos. FTWGs provide a crucial mechanism for understanding how much fertilizer was consumed, by bringing together stakeholders from the public and private sector to triangulate the existing fertilizer data. Depending on the country, the FTWG typically represents the customs office, the port authority, the ministry of agriculture, the national bureau of statistics, and key private sector representatives. The FTWG meetings usually take place during the first quarter of the year when government data becomes available for the previous year. The FTWG representatives spend two days going through each organization’s data to resolve differences between the various organizations and identify the “apparent consumption” amount for that year, which all stakeholders can agree to. This allows all stakeholders both public and private sector to understand the market situation, agree on a common set of data, and better prepare for the needs in the upcoming season.

This apparent consumption data, collected by AFO at the FTWG meetings is the very same one used in the numerator of the fertilizer sector’s most important high-level indicator – Kg/Ha. VIFAA visualizes both the apparent consumption and the national average fertilizer consumption data on the dashboards. VIFAA users in the public sector apply this information to track progress against the fertilizer goals or adjust policies and create incentives for actors in the supply chain as needed. The private sector can apply this information to better plan procurement and imports for the following season.

As I sit to write about Development Gateway’s future, on our 20th anniversary, the world looks quite different than it did just a few short months ago. In one sense, the global pandemic has left no one untouched; while in another it has painfully underscored the many ways in which persistent inequities amplify the impact of emergent shocks. Globally, we have seen increased backlash against these inequities, from the US to Mali to India to Hong Kong, and beyond.

Within digital governance, the “technology theatre” of COVID-19 response continues to be fraught: we’ve seen a multitude of tools-first approaches, outsized influence from big tech, and insufficient data governance models that risk undermining trust in government and instead opening doors for harms. Meanwhile, comparing the performance of countries in combating COVID-19 has underscored the need for effective (and trusted) government, reduced bureaucratic corruption, and strengthened social cohesion, with trusted sources of data and information to go along. As our board member, Nanjira Sambuli, put it, “[t]here is no technological wonder that can ‘leap frog’ this fundamental reform” toward locally owned, trusted, and legitimate application of technology in solving critical governance and service delivery challenges.

While the world feels less predictable than at any point in my life, DG’s vision of a world in which institutions listen and respond to the needs of their constituents; are accountable; and are efficient in targeting and delivering services that improve lives feels more relevant than ever. But while our vision remains fixed, 2020 has highlighted that helping to build this future requires us to be more audacious in our advocacy, more intersectional in our approach, and more ambitious in our work. Marginal improvements will not take us through a recovery toward a brighter future.

Who We Are and How We Work Matters

Global DG: When I joined DG in 2010, we were very much a “DC shop” with a large US team and heavy center of gravity in our HQ. Outside of the US, our offices in Dakar, Senegal, and Nairobi, Kenya were small and led by senior European consultants.

Over the past decade, we’ve decentralized to the point where two-thirds of our team is based outside of the US, and have prioritized hiring team members in and from the countries in which we work. This decentralization has made DG a better organization that benefits from diverse perspectives, understanding of (sub)national context, and greater trust from governments and partners. It has also made us more resilient during COVID-19, enabling us to continue our work more effectively. Future team growth will continue to be almost exclusively in the countries and regions where our work takes place, as we further our identity as a truly global organization.

Equity and Inclusion: DG has placed a strong emphasis on gender: in our leadership, governance, HR policies, programs, external advocacy, and policy engagement. We’ve had the opportunity to be the fiduciary vehicle for the Open Heroines network, as it grows its community and considers long-term governance arrangements. This focus on gender will continue to be a critical element of DG’s approach, and will become more intersectional with a stronger emphasis on race and other forms of inclusive representation.

Adaptation: DG has gone through many iterations over the past two decades, and that ability to change is both the secret to our longevity and the key to our future success. While it’s become trite to say, DG is truly a learning organization: we take what we learn in one program and apply to others, we constantly confer with partners and clients to learn how we can do better, and we work to improve the skills and knowledge of our team. In an uncertain environment, the ability to learn, adapt, and apply our core competencies of data, technology, and institutional change toward emergent needs is crucial to our future.

Understanding Institutions: One of the legacies of our World Bank founding is a long history of working closely with governments and development agencies from the inside. Our approach has changed significantly over the decades to be more problem-driven and collaborative, but our experience has created the credibility to serve as trusted partners – navigating bureaucratic hurdles and inevitable politics and territoriality – to support governments in using data and technology to solve their highest priority challenges.

Data, Technology, and Evidence: Everything we do at DG centers around supporting our partners to apply data, technology, and evidence toward achieving better, more equitable outcomes. Building tools that get used – whether to improve procurement efficiency and transparency, designing better tobacco control policies, or informing governments of the impact of COVID-19 on fertilizer markets – all start with identifying real problems and applying the best available data and evidence. As we are seeing in 2020, the need for trusted intermediaries and technical and political support for evidence-informed policy-making is more important than ever. We can’t confidently project the exact challenges 2021-onward, but we can anticipate that the ability to support trust-based, rigorous, equitable, appropriately governed, and timely data use will be needed to meet them.

Our Third Decade

As we look forward to DG’s next decade, which coincides with the end of the 2030 SDG era, the tumult of the present, together with our core identity and skills, point us to several opportunities to contribute to a more hopeful future.

Data Equity: It’s no longer enough to do the right things in managing data securely and ethically, or even to push for stronger data protection, privacy, and governance. 2020 has made clear yet again the deep inequities in how data are collected (or not), protected (or exposed), and used (or abused) – and the ways in which performative technology theatre distracts from the harder work of building trust in government and providing digital services that are fairly designed and responsive to the needs of constituents. Data to inform policies that are responsive to the needs of women, minority, and marginalized communities are often missing and/or not disaggregated, and the default lens of (white) male data too often persists. DG will become more assertive in pushing for a future where data are collected for the benefit of – and in participatory consultation with – the communities from which they are currently extracted, used to support the priorities of those communities, and protected and/or deleted when their consented purposes are achieved. We were at the forefront of the open data movement and the push for data use, and will increase our investment to become a leader in defining, practicing, and advocating for data equity in development.

Policy and Advocacy: DG has evolved in recent years into a policy contributor, building from our hands-on work to shepherd critical lessons between the global development community and our partners at the national and subnational levels. Historically, this work has been exclusively bootstrapped and scaffolded on top of existing projects. As we see the impact our work can have on global and national policymakers, we also see the opportunity and need to do more – to address critical issues like systemic racism and sexism in development, the ongoing crisis in global cooperation, and continued challenges in applying and using evidence. For the first time in 2020, we have carved out a core budget for policy that, while modest, will be complemented by greater fundraising focus to build out a policy practice at DG.

Programmatic Focus: In recent years, we’ve moved from an organization that followed a more traditional consulting approach (implementing dozens of smaller projects per year), to one that takes on several concurrent large programs (current examples include: OpenDCH, DCDJ, VIFAA, TASAI VISTA, TCDI, AD3, and a soon-to-launch program on data for cashews in West Africa). Implementing these larger programs initially stretched us – requiring advancements in our operational processes, M&E capabilities, and administrative processes – but also validated our theory that longer-term implementation, deeper partnership, and more iterative design processes gives us a greater opportunity to achieve deep and meaningful partnerships and impact.

A global pandemic may not be the ideal business environment to pursue a growth agenda, but we believe that now is the time for DG to be bolder, and that this boldness will require that we also be bigger. The world around us is changing daily, but the principles upon which we are built are the right ones for navigating and influencing that change. We are looking forward to working with our partners in making DG’s 3rd decade our most ambitious and successful one yet.

DG’s Ownership Priority

When I joined DG in 2018, I instantly knew I had joined a group of young and vibrant individuals. What struck me the most was the willingness of everyone at DG to learn and quickly adapt to improve. As we celebrate our 20^th anniversary, we look back at our data approaches guided by lessons learned over the years in understanding the most suitable solutions for different geographies, use cases, and engagements. In particular, our proactive experience in both technical and policy implementation guides us in delivering tailored and viable data solutions.

Out of the many positive elements of DG’s approach, I will focus on ownership, which in my opinion, is by far the most valuable aspect of all our projects. Simply because if ownership is not established at the beginning of a project, well-built data tools will be left lying idle – not used to inform decision-making and policy. Establishing ownership of any data initiative comes with keeping in mind certain complex factors. Time and thought need to be taken to understand the stakeholders and their needs.

Our Agile Approach to Meeting Stakeholder Needs

In our experience, stakeholders may change, and their needs may also change throughout the project. In particular, when working with the government, priorities are often determined by changes in society, political landscapes, or other external factors. For example, some priorities of both national and sub-national governments will need to align with national strategies, which are constantly evolving. At DG, we apply an agile approach to implementation that has proven effective in ensuring the data initiative adapts to the ever-changing needs of government institutions.

Incentives and Policies for Ownership

However, an agile approach needs to be complemented with incentives and clearly defined policies that establish the use and institutionalization of data initiatives. A number of data initiatives will require some form of commitment from the government, which often are slow to organizational change, and may have some personnel who lack the motivation to adopt new initiatives. Adding value to the target institution is not always sufficient in ensuring the long-term adoption and use of data initiatives. Over the years, we have learned that integrating data use strategies and policies establish necessary guidelines for the long-term use of data initiatives, and we have learned how to embed this practice in the institution’s processes. Finally, strategic stakeholder engagement in the adoption of data use strategies and policy must be done.

In 2018, DG, in partnership with HIVOS, supported the Government of Makueni County in Kenya to ensure the use of open contracting data in improving procurement processes. Ownership was a key priority because the County government’s objective was to institutionalize its commitment to open contracting, and to ensure all departments use the data to improve the county’s procurement process and reduce corruption. In 2018, an MoU established between HIVOS, DG, and Makueni County that assigned each party activities aimed at ensuring the use of open contracting data in improving procurement processes. Some of the activities include handover training, developing a data management plan to ensure timely data is published, and the establishment of an open contracting policy to guide all departments. 

Looking Ahead

Over the last twenty years, DG’s work has been pioneering and has had a significant impact in shaping data and policy conversations. Started in the World Bank, DG has morphed into a global organization with location-based personnel across the world. Based in Nairobi, I have seen the impact of this in ensuring context-aware and flexible decisions in all our implementation work. Be it aid management, open contracting, agriculture, or health, we collect and document learning through our in-country assessments that give us institutional, sub-national, and national contexts. The Visualizing Insights on Fertilizer for African Agriculture (VIFAA) initiative – supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation – is a great example, with a team from Kenya, Armenia, Romania, Argentina, US, Nigeria, and Ghana.

At DG, we harness the knowledge from our global teams to improve the implementation of our projects, and looking ahead, there are opportunities to share our learning externally as well. We look forward to translating our learning into global contributions, continuing to shape our data work and policy positioning.

The Visualizing Insights on Fertilizer for African Agriculture (VIFAA) program is working towards making fertilizer-related data, a key subset of agriculture data, more accessible to stakeholders for decision making.

Finding reliable agriculture data in Sub-Saharan Africa is often a difficult undertaking. If available at all, data is usually fragmented and tucked away in silos within government ministries or closely held by private companies. It is also significantly delayed or in a format that makes analysis difficult. For stakeholders in the agriculture value chain, who need information about the market for decision making, a lack of reliable data is a significant barrier.

At the same time, agriculture is a key source of livelihood in Sub-Saharan Africa. 33 million smallholder farmers – who make up approximately 80% of the population – need agriculture inputs such as tools, seeds, and fertilizer in order to produce a viable crop that they can sell in the marketplace. As fertilizer is the most expensive agricultural input for the farmer, making sure they have the right type of fertilizer, at the best price, and that it is available at the right time – is critical. Currently, not a single country in Sub-Saharan Africa is self-reliant on the primary nutrients needed for crops to grow (nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium). Thus decisions on when to import and how much fertilizer to import needs to be made months before the rains come, since very few farmers in SSA have access to irrigation and they are reliant on the annual rains to water their crops.

The VIFAA Program aims to close key information gaps for fertilizer stakeholders in our focus countries of Kenya, Nigeria, and Ghana. By September 2020, the VIFAA team will launch its first dashboard focusing on Kenya’s fertilizer sector. It will cover four main areas of fertilizer information: price, consumption, availability, and policy. The ultimate goal of the VIFAA program is to support data use for decision making, and by extension to support smallholder farmers better access and use fertilizer they need.

In order to achieve these goals, VIFAA started with in-depth assessments in several African countries. We spoke with nearly 100 stakeholders to understand their priorities, how to turn those priorities into indicators, and then we set out to co-design the dashboard.

The assessment confirmed some of what we knew. From a perspective of 30,000 feet, the most important fertilizer indicator is the average consumption of fertilizer per area of cropland – Kilograms per Hectare (Kg/Ha) – which highlights how much fertilizer is actually being used in the field. In 2006, the Abuja Declaration on Fertilizer for an African Green Revolution set 50 kg/ha as the primary target to reach (we will talk more about this indicator and the current levels in technical detail throughout this series). This average fertilizer consumption indicator, Kg/ha, serves as a high-level target, but to understand what factors are contributing to this consumption rate requires additional information. Based on the public and private sector stakeholder feedback, VIFAA has categorized this information under four themes:

1. Price How much does fertilizer cost throughout the entirety of the value chain?
2. Availability How much product is actually available in the country?
3. Fertilizer Use What types of products are farmers applying and which crops?
4. Policy What is the policy environment and considerations around fertilizer that impact the factors above?

While DG has expertise in increasing data use and a background in agricultural projects, it was crucial to build a more specific skillset through partnership – specifically a partner with expertise in fertilizer data. We realized that the International Fertilizer Development Center’s (IFDC) Africafertilizer.org (AFO) initiative was well-positioned to strengthen existing fertilizer data sets, while making them more accessible to decision-makers. This was a perfect marriage as AFO has been collecting data but did not have the required expertise to ensure it was accessible and presented in a way that ensures stakeholders will use it. Together DG and AFO and jointly convened the potential public and private sector users of this data in Kenya, Nigeria, and Ghana. Through a series of workshops, we worked to define priority indicators within the themes listed above, and to co-design dashboard visualizations to meet the needs of the wide variety of fertilizer data users, all while ensuring the variation required to meet each country’s specific market needs. Over the next few weeks, look for more blogs as we tell the story of the VIFAA fertilizer dashboards, their data, and their use.

Pourquoi l’apprentissage continu est-il important?

Ma première tâche à DG était de reconfigurer le réseau de notre partenaire au Burundi pour fournir aux utilisateurs PGA une connexion Internet stable et un accès confortable à notre plateforme. Je me souviens de cette première mission comme si c’était hier – ainsi que de nos premières installations PGA, avec leurs bugs, leurs exceptions Java, qui apparaisaient immanquablement en plein milieu de nos présentations!

Depuis lors, les installations PGA se sont considérablement améliorées et, le système répond presque parfaitement aux besoins des utilisateurs dans la mesure où les modules et les fonctionnalités supplémentaires ont été développés sur la base de leurs commentaires.

Notre processus Agile, et les processus opérationnels de nos partenaires, encadrent le développement de nos outils. Nous avons su répondre au défi récurrent du faible débit Internet dans la majorité de nos pays partenaires en créant une version hors-ligne de la plateforme. Au fil des années, nous avons amélioré la convivialité de la PGA, notre méthodologie ainsi que notre approche qui se veut participative tout au long du cycle du projet, pour des installations plus rationnelles, avec un meilleur rapport qualité-prix.

La PGA était notre produit phare au moment où j’ai rejoint DG. Les leçons que nous avons tirées du développement de nouvelles fonctionnalités et de l’étroite collaboration avec nos partenaires, nous ont amené à étendre les fondamentaux de la gestion de l’assistance au développement à d’autres secteurs, notamment à «ceux qui pourraient bénéficier d’une divulgation et d’une utilisation accrues des données».

Lorsque nous commençons un nouveau projet, ou que nous nous essayons de travailler dans un nouveau secteur, nous commençons toujours par une évaluation pays (mon étape préférée!). Les évaluations auxquelles j’ai participé ont été – et continuent d’être – la meilleure expérience d’apprentissage pour l’équipe du projet. Nous rencontrons toutes les parties prenantes. Très souvent, nos pays partenaires ont déjà pris des mesures pour améliorer la collecte et la divulgation de données; alors nous leur demandons «comment pouvons-nous vous aider?» – cette approche permet, avant tout, de reconnaître leur travail. Il s’en suit une évaluation conjointe des défis actuels, et enfin un partage de leçons apprises, de bonnes pratiques et recommandations à adapter à leur contexte.

Nous encourageons également nos partenaires à nous évaluer dans un souci de toujours faire mieux. Je pense que même si nous restons fidèles à notre mission et à nos valeurs fondamentales, nos méthodologies continuent d’évoluer notamment grâce aux retours constructifs, internes et externes, qui nous ont permis, 20 ans plus tard, de développer des solutions qui aident nos clients à atteindre leurs objectifs stratégiques

Lorsque DG a lancé l’indice WIM, en partenariat avec WIM Guinée, les participants ont partagé des commentaires qui auront sans doute un impact sur notre méthodologie si nous devions reproduire cet exercice à l’avenir: lorsque nous évaluons les commentaires, nous essayons d’évaluer les commentaires positifs et négatifs pour confirmer la neutralité de l’outil et confirmer l’adhésion des parties prenantes.

Les leçons de technologie

La technologie semble toujours effrayer les acteurs non-techniques qui sont sceptiques quant à sa pertinence, sa convivialité mais surtout sa pérennité. Leur réticence est plus que compréhensible lorsqu’ils référencent le nombre de systèmes qui ont été abandonnés quelques années après leur installation. S’il est difficile pour une organisation comme la nôtre d’affirmer que nos outils ne connaîtront pas le même sort, nous sommes en mesure de dire que notre approche inclut un important facteur de durabilité. Comment est-il articulé?

1. Nos outils doivent être utiles. Par conséquent, ils doivent être flexibles et évolutifs. DG travaille avec des normes internationales progressives (par exemple, IATI, ITIE, OCDS) et soutient leur mise en œuvre au niveau national. Il en est de même pour les stratégies nationales qui peuvent changer pendant la mise en œuvre.  L’appui de DG doit pouvoir s’adapter à ces aléas. L’évolutivité et la flexibilité sont deux facteurs clés inclus dans la première partie de l’approche de développement technique de DG, lui permettant de s’adapter rapidement aux nouvelles demandes et aux nouvelles exigences et de rester dans la course!
2. Deux raisons sont souvent invoquées pour expliquer pourquoi beaucoup de systèmes informatiques sont abandonnés dans les pays: la première est liée aux coûts récurrents de licence qui finissent par être trop chers pour les institutions; la seconde est liée au manque de capacités locales pour gérer et maintenir un système au fil du temps. DG a résolu le problème de coût car nos outils sont développés sur des logiciels open source, sans frais de licence. Pour la deuxième préoccupation, nous mettons l’accent sur la formation et le renforcement de capacités locales, un volet fondamental dans tous nos programmes tant sur l’utilisation que sur la maintenance de nos outils. Nous allons encore plus loin, et formons des formateurs locaux, en leur donnant les moyens et les capacités de former des utilisateurs sans notre implication – un facteur clé pour une utilisation durable des ressources avec un impact significatif sur l’appropriation.

Madagascar gère sa PGA de manière indépendante depuis près de 10 ans, et reste l’un de nos meilleurs pays en termes de processus et de résultats. Au cours de ces 10 années, l’équipe PGA de Madagascar a également subi quelques changements, les membres étant nommés à différents postes. Le processus de mise en œuvre a été adapté au renforcement durable des capacités d’une équipe complète. Ainsi, la rotation du personnel a eu un impact minime et le processus PGA reste hautement viable. 

Les leçons sur la mise en œuvre des projets

Les politiques et stratégies nationales, y compris celles qui gèrent la divulgation des données, sont parfois incomplètes ou peu claires. Si elles sont bien rédigées, leur application dans le pays se heurte à certains défis. Nos rencontres préalables, avec les principales parties prenantes d’un secteur, aident énormément la mise en œuvre de nos projets en donnant à notre équipe un aperçu de la valeur ajoutée que notre expertise – collecte et publication de données; science des données; utilisation des données dans les processus décisionnels – peut apporter au secteur. Nos concepts sont essentiellement basés sur les besoins exprimés par les parties prenantes, qui participent aussi activement à la validation des exigences via notre processus de co-design, avant de nous engager dans le développement des  outils.

DG a développé un outil de collect de données EI pour l’Initiative pour la Transparence des Industries Extractives du Nigéria (NEITI) pour rationaliser le processus annuel de réconciliation et réduire les délais constatés dans la publication des informations. Le processus a commencé par une évaluation technique initiale de leur processus d’audit actuel. Il s’en est suivi des sessions de travail conjointes sur les modules et fonctionnalités à inclure dans l’outil pour mieux soutenir le flux de travail et arriver à la rationalisation recherchée. DG et NEITI ont rédigé, ensemble, les exigences techniques avant le développement de l’outil. NEITI a également été impliquée dans chaque itération de développement de l’outil pour fournir des commentaires supplémentaires et améliorer la fonctionnalité. 

L’adhésion des parties prenantes est crucial dans la mise en œuvre de nos projets. Allons plus loin – avoir un partenaire local fiable est important pour plus de résilience dans les projets, en particulier dans les secteurs sensibles ou politiques. Par exemple, certains de nos projets ont été bloqués en raison d’instabilité politique, de changements de gouvernement ou même d’initiatives similaires mises en œuvre par un autre ministère ou par une autre division au sein du même ministère. Pouvoir compter sur un partenaire local s’est avéré très efficace pour renforcer la durabilité et la stabilité tout en essayant de faire avancer le projet même compte tenu des obstacles sur lesquels la DG a très peu de contrôle.

Après avoir installé la PGA au Niger et entamé le processus de viabilité de la plateforme, le pays a connu une vague d’instabilité politique. L’équipe, et le projet, sont restées inactives pendant quelques années avant de contacter DG pour relancer le processus au niveau national.

Les leçons tirées des défis

Lorsque nous travaillons avec les gouvernements plusieurs membres du personnel considèrent tout outil informatique comme synonyme de tâche supplémentaire et peuvent s’attendre à certains avantages tels que des voyages de renforcement des capacités ou de nouveaux équipements. Parfois, lorsqu’ils se rendent compte que nos projets n’incluent pas ces éléments, on sent une certaine démotivation de l’équipe qui se traduit par un ralentissement de nos activités. DG a appris qu’il est important de faire participer l’équipe complète dès le début du projet: cela favorise l’appropriation au niveau national et contribue à la durabilité des outils, car un plus grand nombre d’équipes locales profitent de la formation initiale et du renforcement des capacités.

DG a identifié d’autres facteurs de motivation tels que la participation de nos partenaires – et leur implication – à l’atelier annuel des bonnes pratiques PGA, ou des visites d’échange. D’autres mesures peuvent être inclure l’achat de clés Internet locales sur le long terme ou l’organisation d’ateliers externes de collecte/validation de donnée. Les équipe projet de DG ont appris à mettre l’accent sur les avantages liés à la mise en place d’un outil notamment le gain considérable de temps – un tâche qui nécessitait plusieurs semaines de travail, peut être accomplie en quelques minutes ou en quelques heures,

Dans le cadre du programme Des Chiffres et Des Jeunes (DCDJ), DG a formé et placé des Data Fellows pour des stages en science des données dans toute la Côte d’Ivoire. Les Fellows ont élaboré des outils de données en fonction des besoins de leur organisation hôte; par exemple, un Fellow a créé un outil de compilation de données a permis au Programme National de Lutte contre le Sida (PNLS) de réduire le temps nécessaire pour compiler les données des rapports d’une semaine à quelques minutes.

Que faisons-nous avec tout ce qu’on apprend?

Dans les pays où j’ai eu l’opportunité de travailler, j’ai remarqué qu’ils sont rarement au stade zéro. Ils ont déjà posé les premiers jalons, mais pourraient freinés par des changements organisationnels, opérationnels ou institutionnels.

Dans les pays où je me rends, j’essaie de trouver le maillon faible de la chaîne avant d’évaluer la meilleure façon d’améliorer et de soutenir les efforts de nos partenaires.

Cette approche est applicable à tous les secteurs tant qu’ils partagent notre vision: promouvoir la prise de décision fondée sur des preuves, et accroître la transparence et les mécanismes de responsabilité au niveau des pays, grâce à des informations faciles à comprendre et à utiliser.

En 2018, OSIWA a soutenu des efforts de recherche de DG au Sénégal, en Guinée et au Nigéria, pour déterminer la faisabilité et la pertinence d’y installer des portails nationaux comme outils de collecte de données. À mi-chemin de l’évaluation, c’était comme si nous avions quelques années de retard – les besoins des acteurs non-étatiques avaient évolué vers leur volonté de disposer de données sur l’impact des industries extractives, au-delà de la simple transparence sur les flux financiers. Les parties prenantes, en particulier les acteurs non-étatiques, veulent accéder à des informations qui déclencheront des débats sur les impacts socio-économiques et environnementaux des activités de l’industrie extractive – pour protéger les intérêts nationaux et autonomiser l’exploitation minière. communautés affectées. Notre objectif principal est devenu secondaire et notre recherche s’est concentrée sur la mise en évidence des défis et des demandes exprimés en matière de données. Une fois terminé, nous avons partagé nos conclusions sur leurs besoins en données au niveau mondial et avec les communautés de donateurs, ce qui, nous l’espérons, aidera à mieux soutenir les acteurs non étatiques dans leur quête de plus de transparence. 

Conseils pour faire progresser l’apprentissage

• Connaître le contexte – y compris les opportunités et les défis; partenariat avec des organisations locales fortes; connaître et soutenir les normes internationales au niveau national; et la présentation de solutions concrètes a aidé DG à comprendre comment écouter d’abord, et seulement ensuite à fournir des suggestions sur la façon dont nous pouvons travailler ensemble pour obtenir des résultats.
• Démontrer les avantages – tout en étant très conscient des inconvénients – et proposer des mesures d’atténuation permet d’élever le niveau d’intérêt d’un partenaire.
• Faire preuve de flexibilité et d’ouverture rassurera les partenaires sur votre résilience, surtout lorsque nous soulignons l’importance des capacités locales. Cette valeur transformera toute discussion générale en une discussion constructive, conçue pour soutenir des initiatives dans une variété de secteurs dans de nombreux pays du monde.

Learning Shapes Our Work

My first task at DG was to assess and redesign our partner’s network in Burundi to provide AMP users with a comfortable Internet connection. I remember this day like it was yesterday – our early AMP implementations, the glitches, the bugs, and the Java exceptions we faced while in-country and right in the middle of our presentations!  Since then, AMP implementations have significantly improved. And as additional modules and functionalities were developed based on partner feedback, the system almost perfectly matches their needs. In addition to developing tools based on both our agile processes and existing partner operational processes, we have also responded to the low bandwidth challenges in the majority of our partner countries by offering an offline version. As we improved AMP usability over the years, we also improved our methodology and approach to streamline its in-country implementation, reducing costs, and favoring a participatory approach throughout the project cycle.

The AMP was our leading system at the time I joined DG. The lessons we’ve learned from developing new features to better support our partners have helped us rethink our approach and expand our work to sectors outside of aid management. We asked ourselves, “what other sectors could also benefit from more data disclosure and use?” When we begin a new project or shift focus to a new sector, we start with an in-country assessment (my favorite stage!). The assessments in which I have participated have been – and continue to be – the best learning experiences for the project team. During this time, we meet all stakeholders. Very often, our partner countries have already started taking action towards improving their data collection and disclosure, so we ask, “how can we help you?” – recognizing their work, jointly assessing their current challenges and building on those findings, sharing lessons learned, examples, best practices, and recommendations that will be tailored to their particular context.

We ask our partners to evaluate us so we can do better next time. I feel that while we remain true to our mission and our core values, our methodologies keep improving mainly because of the constructive feedback we receive both internally and externally. This allows us to deliver, 20 years on, tools that help our clients meet their strategic objectives.

When DG launched the WIM Index, participants shared feedback that would impact our methodology if we were to replicate this exercise in the future: when trying to assess feedback, we try to assess positive feedback as well as negative to confirm the neutrality of the tool and get more stakeholder buy-in. 

Lessons about Technology

Technology seems to always scare non-technical actors who question its relevance, its usability but mostly, its sustainability. Their reluctance is more than understandable when they share with you the number of systems that have been implemented and then shelved for many years. While it is difficult for any organization to claim that our tools will continue to be used when other systems are put aside, we are in the position today to say that our approach prioritizes sustainability over time. How do we do this?

1. To remain useful, we have learned that our tools need to be flexible and scalable: DG works with progressive international standards (e.g. IATI, EITI, OCDS) and supports their implementation at the country level. The same is true if national policies shift during implementation, DG’s support can adapt as well. As such, scalability and flexibility are two key factors included in the early part of DG’s approach to technical development, allowing them to adapt quickly to new demands and new requirements and stay in the game!
2. Two reasons are often given as to why IT systems go unused: First, licensing costs that end up being too expensive for organizations, and second the lack of local capacities to maintain and sustain a system over time. DG resolved the cost issue as our tools are developed on open-source software, free of licensing fees. For part two, we make it a point to train and build local capacities on the maintenance of our tools as well as its usage. We also take it even further and train local trainers, empowering them to train users without DG’s involvement – a factor key to sustainable utilization of resources with a significant impact on ownership.

AMP Madagascar has independently managed their AMP for almost 10 years and still remains one of our strongest AMP partner countries in terms of processes and results. During those 10 years, the Madagascar AMP team also underwent some changes as members were appointed to different positions. Because the implementation process was tailored to sustainable capacity building of a full team, changes in staffing have had a minimal impact as the AMP process in-country is still highly viable. 

Lessons about Project Implementation

National policies and strategies, including the ones managing public data disclosure, are sometimes incomplete, other times unclear, or they are well written but their application and enforcement in the country can face challenges. Meeting key stakeholders in a sector has greatly helped our project implementations by giving our team insights on the added value of our expertise – data collection and dissemination, and data science and data use in decision-making processes – can bring to the sector. As such, our designs are based on stakeholders’ expressed needs and they actively participate in requirements validation through our co-design process before we engage in tool development.

DG developed Nigeria Extractives Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI)’s data collection tool and the process started with an initial assessment of their current audit process. After, joint working sessions on the modules and functionalities to be included in the tool to better support workflow and streamlining were held. Together, DG and NEITI wrote the technical requirements prior to tool development. NEITI was also involved in each iteration of tool development iterations and was able to provide additional feedback to improve the functionality. 

Stakeholder buy-in has been crucial in our project implementations. One step further – having a reliable local partner is sometimes important to project resilience, especially in sensitive or political sectors. For example, some of our projects were stalled because of political instability, government changes, or even similar initiatives being implemented by another ministry or even another division within the same ministry. Being able to rely on a local partner has proven to be very efficient in building sustainability and stability and trying to advance the project even given obstacles DG has little control over.

After installing AMP in Niger and working jointly for several years, the country experienced a wave of political instability. The team remained inactive for a few years before they contacted DG to re-launch the process. 

Lessons Learned from Challenges

One thing that is almost always a challenge when working with governments is that some staff see any IT tool as an additional task, and they might expect additional benefits such as capacity building trips or equipment as incentives to learn and use the tool. At times, when they realize that our projects do not always include these benefits, there is a demotivation from the team, and activities are slowed down. However, DG has learned that training locally with the full team has huge advantages: it supports fuller in-country ownership and contributes to tool sustainability, as larger numbers of the local teams can take advantage of the initial training and capacity building.

We have learned that motivation can still include cross-country learning and participation in DG’s semi-annual AMP workshop, study tours, and exchange visits. It can also include purchasing internet keys for the project and organizing data collection/validation exercises and workshops outside of the office. Additionally, we’ve learned to highlight the time-saving benefits of an information management tool like AMP are significant motivators themselves – DG’s tools mean that what used to take several individuals weeks of administrative work now takes just a matter of minutes or hours.

As part of the Des Chiffres et Des Jeunes (DCDJ) program, DG trained and placed Data Fellows in data science internships throughout Cote d’Ivoire. Fellows built data tools based on their host organization’s needs; for example, one time-saving data compilation tool that a Data Fellow built enabled the National AIDS Control Program (PNLS) to reduce the time it took to compile report data from over a week, to a matter of minutes.

Where Does Our Learning Go?

In the countries in which I have been given the opportunity to work, I have noticed that they are rarely at stage zero. They have been working to put the pieces together, but might be struggling with organizational, operational, or institutional changes – these are pretty similar in countries regionally.

After realizing this, I now go to countries to find the missing link, and to assess how best to improve and support our partners’ existing efforts. This approach is applicable to all sectors as long as they share our vision: to promote evidence-based decision-making processes, and to increase transparency and accountability mechanisms at the country level, through information that is easy to understand and use.

In 2018, OSIWA supported research in Senegal, Guinea, and Nigeria to determine the feasibility and relevance of implementing country portals as data collection tools. Partway through the assessment, our main objective rapidly shifted. It was as if we were a few years late – non-state actors expressed the need to have data on the impact of extractive industry, beyond just transparency on the financial flows. Stakeholders want to access information that will trigger debates on socio-economic and environmental impacts of extractive industry activities – to protect national interests and empower mining-affected communities. Our main objective became secondary, and our research focused on highlighting their expressed data challenges and demands. Once completed, we shared our findings about their data needs at the global level and with donor communities, which we hope will help better support non-state actors in their quest for more transparency. 

Tips for Taking Learning Forward

• Knowing the context – including the opportunities and challenges; partnering with strong local organizations; knowing and supporting international standards at the country level, and showcasing real-life solutions has helped DG understand how to listen first, and only then provide suggestions on how we can work together to achieve results.
• Demonstrating the pros – while being very aware of the cons – and proposing mitigation measures helps raise a partner’s interest level.
• Showing flexibility and openness will reassure partners of your resilience, especially when we emphasize the importance of local capacity. This value will turn any general discussion into a constructive one, tailored to support initiatives in a variety of sectors in many countries globally.

Starting in June 2018, in partnership with Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA), DG assessed the extractive industry (EI) data landscape in Senegal, Nigeria, and Guinea. The goal was to determine the feasibility of designing and implementing an Extractives Industry Data Portal (EIDP) for each country, the initial objective of which would be to reduce reporting delays in Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI) annual reports. These delays could be up to two years for some countries.

This assessment followed initial work developing a website and portal for the Extractives Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI) International Secretariat. It included an in-depth study of each country’s legal and institutional frameworks, readiness to open up EI data; an analysis of activities of actors in the sector and their willingness to promote open data use, and a review of human and technical capacities for sustainable implementation. The assessment methodology included desk research to understand the specific country context, followed by one-on-one interviews with stakeholders in the government, private sector, and community service organizations.

This post originally appeared as Building an Efficient HIV/AIDS Database for Improved Data Use in Côte d’Ivoire on the DCLI website, which can be found here.

A Data Fellow placed with the National AIDS Control Program (Plan National de la Lutte Contre le SIDA/VIH, PNLS), the government agency that coordinates the national response to the HIV/AIDS crisis in Côte d’Ivoire, Ali Diakité, built a solution that noticeably improved the PNLS process efficiency and data quality. As the primary HIV/AIDS control program in Côte d’Ivoire, PNLS uses the tool to make direct improvements to its data quality, timeliness, and epidemic response.

Background

Des Chiffres et Des Jeunes (DCDJ) aims to bolster the subnational supply and usage of data for citizens of Côte d’Ivoire, engage youth as champions of these services, and fuel innovation to address rising data and information needs. Through the DCDJ Fellowship Program, Ivorians between 18 and 34 years old spend two months in intensive data science and analytics training. Following the training, Fellows are placed in internships to support their hosting organizations in making data-informed decisions. DCDJ (Des Chiffres et Des Jeunes) is a project of the Data Collaboratives for Local Impact (DCLI) program, a partnership between PEPFAR and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) that aims to increase expertise and resource availability in Côte d’Ivoire.

The National AIDS Control Program (Plan National de la Lutte Contre le SIDA/VIH, PNLS) is the government agency that coordinates the national response to the HIV/AIDS crisis in Côte d’Ivoire. PNLS is responsible for collecting and reporting logistical and clinical data from 33 regions and 113 districts, as well as creating and executing the National Strategic Plan (Plan National du VIH/SIDA, PNS) to fight HIV/AIDS, which is the national roadmap for the next five years of Côte d’Ivoire’s epidemic response.

Ali Diakité is an alumnus of the first cohort of the DCDJ Fellowship program. Ali holds a degree in statistics from Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Statistique et d’Economie Appliquée d’Abidjan (ENSEA). After the training, Ali was placed in an internship at PNLS, to support their efforts in confronting the HIV/AIDS crisis in Côte d’Ivoire. A year later, Ali has been able to implement and sustain a new data collection tool to ease PNLS’ slow data aggregation and use process.

A Lack of Timely, High-Quality Data

Despite the wealth of data reported to PNLS, department heads lacked access to timely, high-quality data for policy and program decision making. During stakeholder interviews within PNLS, Ali learned that the lack of standardized data formats made compiling the reported logistical and clinical data a time-consuming and error-prone process. Inconsistent categories and Excel table headers from different clinics and pharmacies had to be hand-reconciled into one consolidated data set. Without interoperable data formats, data quality suffered, and compiling the data took ten individuals over a week of work. Then inconsistent data would be sent back to the districts for corrections and the process would start again from the beginning. The time- and resource-intensive data compilation and correction process meant some of the data could be up to a year old. Finally, even if the data was more accurate, the data was stored in a series of spreadsheets, which made analysis more difficult without a statistician on staff at PNLS. PNLS was making decisions and setting long-term strategies based on suboptimal, sometimes outdated, data. Ali explained, “The problem was really having access to the data quickly. They weren’t even dealing with analysis or visualizations – their first challenge was getting the data. So we wanted to address the root causes of the problem.”

Developing a Solution

Ali used the Python skills and other resources gained during the Data Fellowship training to develop an efficient data compilation tool for PNLS. Ali’s program gathers data from a variety of heterogeneous datasets and compiles it into a standard format in a single homogenous database in a matter of minutes. During the automatic compilation process, the tool also completes data quality checks. In the final stages, data is provided to users in an easily digestible format.

Before creating the tool, Ali researched the data ecosystem of PNLS. With a more complete understanding of the reporting and compilation process, Ali considered several solutions. A Python based solution was the best fit as it automated and accelerated the data compilation process. The tool was created to systematically format comparable data, and simultaneously check cells for accuracy. For example, if a clinic reports treating 30 patients, but also reports that 36 of the patients were male, the tool automatically alerts PNLS of the reporting error.

Impacts for PNLS & Ali

The Python-based program has drastically reduced the amount of time and number of staff necessary to compile data from reports. Before, ten PNLS staff members would manually check each cell of data reported by clinics and pharmacies in 33 regions and 113 districts, a process that could take more than a week. Now, the Python program completes the entire process quickly and automatically in a matter of minutes. After the compilation process, PNLS staff now access and analyse one unified file in a single, accurate format referred to as the National Database. Previously, even though data was compiled every quarter, the slow processing time sometimes meant analyzing data that was six or nine months old. Now that the Python program has automated the process, data is from the previous one or two months, which makes it significantly more relevant. . Ali began his evaluation and work on a solution in January 2019, by May 2019 the python program was introduced organization-wide, and continues to be in use today. Ali has trained several of his colleagues at PNLS to use, maintain, and update the Python program so that it will continue to be useful in the future.

On an organizational level, more accurate and timely data gives PNLS a better understanding of the realities of HIV/AIDS in Côte d’Ivoire. Before, the organization was relying on out of date data and information. As a result, PNLS had miscalculated how many HIV/AIDS patients it was treating and could not understand why the numbers of patients being treated did not match with the significant interventions taking place. But with data compiled from the Python program, PNLS could see the actual numbers, correct inaccuracies, and understand the true impact.

The PNS currently under development draws heavily on data processed by Ali’s program. Ali said, “I was really honored to be involved in these discussions that international experts also attended. It was a moment of pride for me to see that such an important document for the fight against HIV/AIDS is being developed based on data I helped obtain through the solution that I built.”

The deployment of Ali’s solution noticeably improved the PNLS process efficiency and data quality. PNLS uses the tool to make direct improvements to its data quality, timeliness, and epidemic response. In addition, PNLS extended Ali’s contract beyond the length of the Data Fellowship. Using the wealth of knowledge he acquired as a DCDJ fellow, Ali now has the resources to take his career far beyond what he might have imagined before graduating from University.