Senegal marked its entry into the Global Partnership's Make Inclusive Data the Norm (MIDN) initiative on July 21, 2026, with a national launch workshop at the Noom Hotel in Dakar. The day opened a four-day gathering in the capital running through July 24, bringing Senegalese institutions together with partner countries for a shared exchange on inclusive data.
The workshop was designed to bring together around 70 participants, drawn from Senegal's public agencies, its national statistics and health institutions, local authorities, civil society organizations, community representatives, and technical and financial partners. Its aim was to introduce MIDN in Senegal, an effort to strengthen the quality, equity, and responsiveness of health services through a system of citizen data built to work alongside the national health information system, SNIS/DHIS2. The initiative is being carried out with Senegal's National Agency for Statistics and Demography (ANSD), health authorities, and PACE as project partners.
The day opened with remarks from Fodé Dieme, ANSD's Director of Methodology, Statistical Coordination and Innovation, who presented the agency's mandate within the national statistical system, followed by goodwill remarks from PACE's chief executive and an overview of MIDN from the Global Partnership. ANSD's Director General spoke on the value of inclusive data for public statistics and evidence-based decision-making, and, later sessions turned to Senegal's health information system, with the Ministry of Health speaking to the challenges of equity and quality of care under DHIS2, and a representative of the Presidency's Data Protection Commission making the case for integrating citizen data into public systems.
The afternoon moved into more applied ground, covering how citizen data would be collected, which variables to prioritize, and the governance questions that come with folding a new data stream into an existing system. Participants closed the day in thematic groups, working through priority indicators, governance arrangements, and how findings get fed back to the citizens who generate the data.
Senegal is the fifth country to take up MIDN, joining Colombia, Ghana, Kenya, and Nigeria, each advancing its own national priority under the initiative while contributing to a shared base of practice on inclusive data. The Dakar gathering continues through July 24 with peer exchange among the five countries, closing with a visit to ANSD's data science laboratory, where participants will see the agency's applied data projects firsthand.
