Stories, ideas, and updates from DGers around the world

As we review our strategy, we plan to share here much of what we’ve learned through programming in more than a dozen countries – from our work and from our excellent partners – about the state of data in agriculture, tobacco control, open contracting, and the extractive industries. For each theme, we’ll explore who are the key data users, the decisions they make, the most important data gaps, and the crucial risks of data (mis)use. Here we share previews from some of our flagship programs.

DG is pleased to announce the publication of our latest white paper, Designing Data Strategies: A Playbook for Action. This work aims to distill lessons learned from our research and collaboration, designing data strategies with development and humanitarian agencies. In the current ‘data revolution’ era, data and digital are both a strategic asset and a source of institutional risk.

On October 15 at 9:00-10:00AM EST, DG is hosting a conversation on the sidelines of the 2020 Virtual UN World Data Forum, focused on strengthen local data and statistical capacities moving forward.

For many organizations, working with & managing remote, global teams has become a new challenge during the pandemic. DG has counted on a global team for many years – and we recently committed to growing our team almost exclusively in the countries and regions in which our work takes place. To demystify what could be a daunting process, we're sharing lessons that we've learned from building our global team.

With support from DCDJ, local youth in Côte d’Ivoire organized a successful mapathon to get community resources, landmarks, and risk zones in Daloa – particularly those relevant to young people – on the map. Through the process, they acquired new skills including OSM tracker to develop map layers, how to collect local data, and how to communicate results stored in a new database developed through the program.

As governments look to “build back better,” we can expect an influx of government spending to stimulate the economy, and a shift in priority goods and services to purchase. While the world transitions from emergency response to recovery, governments’ focus will shift from using technology to procure other products, to procuring technology products themselves.

Through partnerships in Côte d’Ivoire, DG collaborated to build a platform which integrates and visualizes data from multiple sources, using maps and dashboards, for policymakers and health workers. A handoff ceremony caps a two-year effort to improve the data and tools accessible to the country’s health workers.

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.

Achieving resilient public procurement goes beyond digitization and automation: data generated through these processes must also be used by government to make smarter decisions – particularly during crisis – and by civil society to hold government accountable for those decisions.