Posts categorized Program

With citizens' lives on the line and government spending at record highs, ensuring accountability to citizens is imperative to maintaining trust and effectively managing procurement in response to COVID-19. Last week, President Uhuru Kenyatta directed the Ministry of Health to come up with a transparent, open method and mechanism through which all tenders and procurement done by Kenya Medical Supplies Agency will be available online. Much can be learned from DG's experience implementing an Open Contracting Portal in Makueni County, Kenya.

In developing the VIFAA Kenya Dashboard, we worked in partnership with Africafertilizer.org (AFO) and the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) to understand the cycle of demand, supply, and use of Kenya’s fertilizer data. Grace Chilande of AFO and IDFC provides more information on why the dashboard is needed and how it will be used.

We are thrilled to announce that the Visualizing Insights for African Agriculture (VIFAA) Kenya Fertilizer Dashboard is now live! From fertilizer price to consumption, this dashboard makes Kenya’s fertilizer data easier to access, use, and share for national and county level decision making

In advance of the first VIFAA country dashboard launch next week, we will explore the importance and source of 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. 

Finding reliable agriculture data in sub-Saharan Africa is often difficult. 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 who need information for decision making, a lack of reliable data is a significant barrier. 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.

Starting in June 2018, DG assessed the extractive industry 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. A major finding is that extractive industry financial flow data is no longer enough. Stakeholders want information that will help them advocate for protecting the environment, providing youth and educational services, and ensuring access to health facilities in the community.

Ali Diakité is an alum of the first DCDJ Fellowship cohort. After two months of intensive data science training, he was placed with the National AIDS Control Program (PNLS), the government agency that coordinates the national response to the HIV/AIDS crisis in Côte d’Ivoire. During the Fellowship, Ali built a solution that noticeably improved PNLS' 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.

The COVID-19 Africa Fertilizer Watch Dashboard, covering 28 countries across sub-Saharan Africa was launched today. This dashboard uses 11 indicators to track COVID-19 country-specific mitigation measures on the delivery & use of fertilizers to identify impacts on productivity & food security across the continent. The goal of this dashboard is to support efficient and effective responses to the evolving global health emergency, and ensure that sufficient and appropriate fertilizers reach farmers. 

Through the DCDJ Fellowship program in Côte d’Ivoire, youth are trained in data science skills and placed in organizations where they can support data use in the fight against HIV/AIDS. At her placement site, Flore Koffi identified the opportunity to enhance the use of the data by creating a regularly updated, real-time, centralized source.

If an organization with an existing culture of learning and adaptation gets lucky, and an innovative funding opportunity appears, the result can be a perfect storm for changing everything. The Results Data Initiative was that perfect storm for DG. RDI confirmed that simply building technology and supplying data is not enough to ensure data is actually used. It also allowed us to test our assumptions and develop new solutions, methodologies & approaches to more effectively implement our work.