Understanding Data, Contributing to Development and Making a Difference: My CSF Experience21/12/2018 Seth Davis, Communications Officer, Community Systems Foundation Having the dream of working in human development since participating in Model United Nations as a first-year student in university, it seems almost unreal that six months after graduating I have already contributed to projects led by UNESCO, UN Free & Equal (UNFE) and the World Health Organization (WHO), among others. 
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Menna El Shiati, Advisor - Gender and FGM, Community Systems Foundation Seth Davis, Communications Officer, Community Systems Foundation In 2017, The League of Arab States (LAS), United Nations Economic and Social Commission (UN ESCWA), United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) launched the Arab Multidimensional Poverty Report in a United Nations General Assembly High-Level Side Event.  Seth Davis, Communications Officer, Community Systems Foundation Traveling over 10,000 miles, Officials from the Ministry of Education, Youth, Sports and Culture (MoEYSC) Belize traveled to Singapore to attend an OpenEMIS Advanced Lab Trainings in mid-November. As the culmination of a successful three year project, four key counterparts from the MoEYSC successfully completed the trainings to build individual and institutional capacity in preparation for national roll-out of BEMIS, the national adaptation of OpenEMIS.  Seth Davis, Communications Officer, Community Systems Foundation A DevInfo to Data For All Transition To strengthen the national monitoring and evaluation capacity in Belize at the project, sector and thematic levels, as well as against national strategic plans and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Ministry of Human Development, Social Transformation and Poverty Alleviation launched BelizeInfo, an adaptation of DevInfo, in 2016. [1]  Seth Davis, Communications Officer, Community Systems Foundation To assist countries in the achievement of national priorities related to poverty eradication, under five child mortality rate and impact of malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, the EQUitable Impact Sensitive Tool provides analysis of inequitable distribution of development results along with a scenario analysis function to access the impact of the removal of bottlenecks in the delivery of interventions. This helps national health programmes to prioritize interventions and geographical areas. [1]  Jeeveeta Agnihotri, Chief Programme Officer, Community Systems Foundation Seth Davis, Communications Officer, Community Systems Foundation From DevInfo to Data For All In A Data Revolution in Motion, the UN Statistics Division highlights the importance of data tools “to gather, present and disseminate Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) data.” [1] In order to better track progress on national priorities and the SDGs and to create meaningful interventions, however, policy-makers must use these tools efficiently, effectively and extensively.  Seth Davis, Communications Officer, Communications Officer Considering the Maldives are an archipelago of 1,192 coral islands with around 200 islands containing schools, historically it has been difficult for the country to create a central education system that caters to the needs of all learners. To unify the education system, and to collect, store and obtain significant information for decision-making and management, the Maldives began utilizing OpenEMIS. Since launching the Maldives Education Management Information System (MEMIS), an adaptation of the open-source toolkit, data handling has become easier for education officials in the Maldives. While teachers and administrators have collected data on paper for many years, MEMIS has enabled education professionals to more efficiently manage and access data on students, staff and schools. MEMIS has assisted teachers through the mobile-friendly attendance record keeping feature. And, for the first time ever, school officials are using MEMIS technology to generate over 40,000 student report cards. With easier access to reliable education data through the MEMIS Dashboard, policy decisions can now be informed to ensure education access, equity and quality and to improve internal coordination and efficiency. Ruchi Varma, Program Manager-Urban Development, Community Systems Foundation Jayati Narain, Research Associate, OpenCities Institute From Urban Imperative by Edward Glaeser & Abha Joshi-Ghani, cities can best be understood as a ‘triad of forces’. While commonly seen as physical entities, such as streets, buildings, and subways, and viewed from the lens of the public sector, which defines the borders of the city and has the responsibility for providing clean water and public safety, Glaeser and Joshi-Ghani note that cities have a third, equally important, element. That is, “the magic of human interaction.” [1]  Strengthening India’s Education Data Dissemination through Visualization Tools on U-DISE and NAS19/10/2018 Seth Davis, Communications Officer, Community Systems Foundation With 377,222,017 students in pre-primary, primary and secondary schools in 2018, nearly one-third of India’s total population is attending education institutions below the university level. [1]. The number of Indian school children is larger than the entire population United States - the third largest country in the world.  Seth Davis, Communications Officer, Community Systems Foundation While 1.4 million new HIV infections have been averted since 2010, the disease continues to persist. According to the Michel Sidibé, UNAIDS Executive Director, in 2017 alone, 180,000 children became infected with the virus. [1] Children, along with society’s most vulnerable populations — “adolescent girls and young women, indigenous peoples, migrants, the poor and uneducated, and key populations at highest risk of HIV infection—are being left behind.” [2]  Technology is coming to monitor the academic progress of all primary and secondary school students, the Ministry of Education has announced. “Government has just rolled out an educational management information system which will allow for the monitoring of key performance and behavioural indicators, and all IT coordinators in our schools have been trained to monitor it,” said Acting Minister of Education Senator Lucille Moe. She was speaking during a service at the Collymore Rock Church of the Nazarene to mark Education Month.  Menna El Shiati, Advisor - Gender and FGM, Community Systems Foundation Seth Davis, Communications Officer, Community Systems Foundation Since 2008, the UN Global Joint Programme (JP) on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) has supported “more than 3.2 million girls and women in 17 countries” [1] The JP, a partnership between The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and UNICEF has assisted with provision of appropriate and quality services, increased community-led engagement, legal and policy frameworks, government ownership and increased access to accurate and timely data. At the same time, the JP seeks to measure the progress, quality and success of FGM programming. This is done by focusing on planning, reporting, monitoring and evaluation.  Seth Davis, Communications Officer, Community Systems Foundation Globally, LGBTQ+ individuals face discrimination, stigma and violence due to dangerous national legislation. This is especially the case in at least 72 countries where discriminatory laws criminalize private, consensual same-sex relationships. These policies expose “millions of individuals to the risk of arrest, prosecution and imprisonment – and even, in five countries and several regions, the death penalty” – for simply loving another person. [1]  Reblog: ehealth.eletsonline.com IN THE NEWS Since 2017, Community Systems Foundation's technology partner AVALON has partnered with Jhpiego, India on Project ASMAN. This innovative health-facility-based intervention provides accurate and timely visualizations with the goal of providing quality care to mothers during the first 48-60 hours after delivery. The overall aim of Project ASMAN is to reduce maternal and neonatal mortality. As an Android-based mobile application, this labor monitoring tool seeks to overcome labor complications by including partographs and gamification techniques that seek to facilitate referral management based on needs of mothers. As discussed in the article, the ASMAN initiative "will not only improve the way data is collected but [will] also improve the ability of the system to interpret, analyze, translate and use the data...towards improving decision making by service providers and the beginning of [a] new dawn for informed data-driven decision making by the facility as well as district and state level officials."  Ruchi Varma, Program Manager - Urban Development, Community Systems Foundation With 70% of the global population residing in urban areas by 2050, the battle for a sustainable future will be won or lost in cities. Foreseen to be the second largest urban system in the world, India will be a major driver in this global effort, especially considering India will house nearly 60% of its population in cities by 2050. In this regard, it is critical to strengthen local governments response to the Agenda 2030 and New Urban Agenda to ensure ‘no one is left behind.’  |