Governments across Africa need better resources, including hard and soft data infrastructure, and timely data and information to inform the allocation of resources and the policies that will successfully ease the impacts of the pandemic. While much of the data exists, as well as the tools needed to analyze and use it, the challenges lie in supporting governments to gain access to the available information, technologies (hardware and software) and innovations.

Following the Data for Now: Building Africa’s Resilience to COVID-19 program, the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, and NVIDIA deployed a series of capacity development interventions targeted at enhancing capacity and skills and provisioning of data infrastructure aimed at building resilience of national statistical offices (NSOs). Participating countries included: Central African Republic, Guinea, Togo, Somaliland, Somalia, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Ghana, Rwanda. 

This pilot initiative provides crucial technical data infrastructure aims to support NSOs with:

  • improving data management, access and use capability
  • strengthening national data and statistical systems
  • increasing resilience of the statistical offices for future national responses.