EVENT: How are African countries using data to address the COVID-19 Pandemic? Early Reflections from the #Data4COVID19 Africa Challenge

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has taken an enormous toll. A lack of timely, reliable data makes it especially difficult for decision-makers to track disease spread and measure knock-on effects of the pandemic. This, in turn, undermines their ability to develop the interventions needed to improve the livelihoods of people there.

Across Africa, many countries face an especially tough challenge due to rising cases, a surge in variants, and a lack of access to vaccines. With less than one percent of the continent’s total population vaccinated, there is growing fear that the countries across the continent face a “third wave” of the pandemic. Data innovation, leveraging both traditional and non-traditional sources responsibly, will be essential to prevent worse from happening.

The #Data4COVID19 Africa Challenge—a collaboration between l'Agence française de développement (AFD), Expertise France, and The GovLab - seeks to accelerate responsible data innovation to tackle COVID-19 pandemic across Africa. As part of the initiative we are facilitating a broader conversation among key project leads, stakeholders and experts on the role and current practice of data-driven pandemic response within Africa. 

Please join us for the following conversations: 

On 12 July, conducted in French, Peter Addo (Head of the DataLab, French Development Agency, AFD) will facilitate a conversation with:

• Ndeye Massata Ndiaye (Université Alioune Diop de Bambey, Senegal)
• Fodé Traoré (Institut de Recherche pour le Développement)
• Lambert Tanoh (Data Science Institute : Institut National Polytechnique Felix Houphouët-Boigny)

REGISTER here to attend the French-language panel.

On 14 July, conducted in English, Stefaan Verhulst (Co-Founder and Chief R&D Officer at The GovLab) will moderate a panel discussion with:

• Frances Obare (Population Council Kenya) 
• Chinwe Ochu (Nigeria Center for Disease and Control)
• Third party TBD

REGISTER here to attend the English-language panel.

Participants will discuss the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the current use of data systems in their regions; as well as the ways that their work (and data reuse work more broadly) can address the worst aspects of the pandemic. They will also touch briefly on the projects that they are working on. Recordings of these panels and a summary of their major points will be published subsequently.

We hope you will stay engaged until then. Please be sure to check back at our site at https://datachallenge.africa/ for further updates on the #Data4COVID19 Africa Challenge.

Read this blog in French here.