In 2025, we sat across from a group of data professionals in Accra. They had just completed three months of training on climate and health data, and the room had that particular energy you only get when people who've been working in silos suddenly realize they're not alone. A government official from Nigeria was describing a challenge with her ministry's data systems. Halfway through her sentence, someone from Ghana interrupted, not to correct her, but because the exact same problem existed in his office, two countries and 1,500 kilometers away.
That moment has stayed with us, because it named something we had been watching quietly across three years of the Africa Climate and Health Data Capacity Accelerator Network. The problems are shared, but the people trying to solve them rarely find each other.
What three years taught us
The Africa Climate and Health Data Capacity Accelerator Network, which we're now also calling Afri-CAN, was built on a simple bet that African data professionals with the right skills and the right support could change how their institutions use data at the intersection of climate and health. The program trained hundreds of learners, placed tens of fellows inside government ministries, statistical offices, and social impact organizations across the continent, and trusted them to work on problems their countries actually had.
What we didn't fully anticipate was that the most durable thing we were building wasn't a curriculum or a toolkit; it was the network of people who went through it.
Across three cohorts, the Afri-CAN fellowship received over 5,000 applications, with eight fellows in the first cohort, ten in the second, and five in the third. In Malawi, fellow Steven Bowah spent his placement tracing why blood supplies were failing to reach hospitals in the north during the rainy season. His analysis confirmed what health workers had long suspected: when floods washed out the bridge at Enukweni, deliveries stalled for days, leaving trauma patients, obstetric emergencies, and children needing transfusions to wait. Steven turned that frustration into a data blueprint that partners are now using to pre-position blood supplies before the rains arrive each year.
That's what this program produces — not just skilled individuals, but evidence that actually moves.
Why a community, and why now
When fellows return to their institutions after a placement, the same fragmented data systems are waiting for them. The formal program has a start date and an end date, but the challenges it trains people to address don't respect those boundaries, and neither does the appetite to keep learning once it's been unlocked. What happens to the momentum is a question Afri-CAN has been sitting with since cohort one.
What practitioners actually need is a sustained community where they can find each other, share what's working, and stay sharp on the questions that don't have clean answers yet. Climate and health data don't neatly fit into one ministry. It spans agriculture, environment, health, disaster management, and statistics, and the practitioners working at those intersections need spaces to think out loud across borders with people who understand the terrain.
That's what Afri-CAN is building. A Community of Practice with a LinkedIn group as the visible hub, a newsletter as the connective tissue, and structured events, including a session at the Global Data Festival and Kenya Space Expo & Conference in Nairobi this June, as moments of real encounter. The Afri-CAN Playbook, which captures practical lessons, tools, and stories from our fellows and partner institutions, is the shared body of knowledge that the community will continue to build on together.
Who this is for, and how to join
If you went through any cohort of Afri-CAN (formerly known as Africa CAN) training or fellowship, this community is yours. No application required.
If you work at the intersection of climate and health data in an African government institution, statistical office, or social impact organization, and you've largely been doing it on your own, this community is also yours.
And if you're a practitioner, researcher, or advocate working in this space who wants to stay connected to what's happening on the ground across the continent, there is room for you here, too.
You can join the LinkedIn group now. The first in-person gathering will be at the Global Data Festival and Kenya Space Expo and Conference in Nairobi, 2 to 5 June 2026 - buy your tickets today. Sign up for the AfriCAN monthly newsletter, as upcoming virtual events will be announced there and on the LinkedIn group.
What we're asking for isn't much. Show up, share what you're working on, and when someone from another country describes a problem you recognize from your own office, join the conversation, and probably find a solution together.
That room in Accra in 2025 was the glimpse of something. We'd like to see where it goes with all of you in it.
