INITIATIVES

Initiatives

CSF places communities at the centre of their own development initiatives. We help them build the capacity to make data-driven decisions on how best to meet their own aspirations and needs in a sustainable manner.

Data for All

DFA is a toolkit of open source software tools designed to produce reliable and timely data for programme planning, service delivery, transparency, and accountability. DFA is contributing to the realisation of the SDGs and the 2030 Agenda by assisting Member States to achieve sustainable development through strengthening data and statistical systems for evidence-based policy formulation. The DFA initiative builds on the lessons learned in the successful implementation of the joint United Nations DevInfo initiative implemented in more than 100 countries.

OpenEMIS

CSF, in partnership with UNESCO, designed, developed and deployed OpenEMIS, a high-quality Education Management Information System (EMIS) designed to collect and report data on schools, students, teachers and staff. The system was conceived by UNESCO, and developed by CSF, as a royalty-free system that can be easily customised to meet the specific needs of countries. OpenEMIS include models to determine vulnerability index for vulnerable populations like students with girls, students with disabilities and out-of-school children, among others. The OpenEMIS initiative has received support from UNESCO, UNICEF, USAID, Inter-American Development Bank, Save the Children, and EU.

DevInfo

CSF has extensive experience developing platforms for data management and dissemination. Since the early 1990s, CSF has worked with UNICEF to develop the technology to monitor first, the World Summit for Children goals, and then the Millennium Development Goals. This technology became DevInfo, a platform to monitor a broad spectrum of human development indicators, endorsed by the UN Development Group and used by over 130 countries including 40 Least Developed Countries.

EQUIST

Since 2010, CSF has partnered with UNICEF in the design, development and deployment of EQUIST, a data-driven model that identifies equitable strategies to save lives through deprivation analysis that reveals disparities often masked by aggregate figures. The system shows health planners how to invest in proven cost-effective interventions that optimise the use of available resources.

Products

CSF develops tools for data capture, data management, and data analysis. These tools are deployed on notebooks, tablets, and mobile phones. The tools are built as tightly-aligned, loosely-coupled modules to facilitate interoperability and scalability.

These modules include: SMS data capture, administrative management information systems, data integration, data warehouses, data visualisation, data dashboards, data profiles, results-based monitoring, data modelling for better planning.

Services

CSF provides technical assistance and capacity building to strengthen the use of data for decision support. We conduct high-level leadership seminars for planners.
Our analysts conduct needs assessments and proof of concept exercises to identify the most appropriate strategies for a given country setting.

Our trainers provide hands-on workshops on data capture, data management, and data analytics. Our management experts provide advice on the use of data for monitoring results to improve programme outcomes. We provide training in data visualisation and analytics through innovative data dashboards and advocacy materials.

Open Source

CSF is responding to the increasing demand for open data and open source software technologies. We aim to leverage the global and national investments in data collection to result in better development outcomes through evidence-based decision support.

Our software is designed to make it easier to discover, analyse and visualise meaningful relationships and patterns in socioeconomic data sets, with the ultimate goal of improving planning, policy formulation and decision-making.