It's not always easy
As a consultant for UNICEF DR Congo, bedatadriven’s Alex Bertram led the implementation of a web-based country-wide data management platform for the Congo, a country emerging from decades of conflict and challenged by poor infrastructure.
UNICEF DRC’s emergency programme aims to improve assistance to women and children through the analysis and mapping of needs, careful monitoring of activities, and coordination with other actors. However, the difficulty and time required to collect and prepare data for analysis was often an obstacle, and often the relevant data could not be assembled in time to inform key decisions.
To address this challenge, UNICEF developed ActivityInfo, an online platform for the creation and management of monitoring databases. ActivityInfo connects programme coordinators and managers with data about their activities, partners and geography, and provides them with analytical tools such as maps and charts that allow them to monitorthe evolution of their programme in real-time. ActivityInfo allows non-technical programme managers to quickly create and manage databases through a simple web page, and enables partners to report the results of assessments or activities through a web interface.
Two years later, bedatadriven continues to develop new features for ActivityInfo and adoption continues to grow within UNICEF — and among the broader humanitarian community in the DRC. In 2011, ActivityInfo will be used with OCHA to support information management across all clusters in the DRC.