Sparking a Data Revolution through Ministry-Level Strategic Plans in Côte D’Ivoire

​Jeeveeta Agnihotri, Chief Programme Officer, Community Systems Foundation

Seth Davis, Communications Officer, Community Systems Foundation

SNIEPSE - Building a national integrated planning, monitoring and evaluation system based on evidence for Côte D’Ivoire ​
​Community Systems Foundation (CSF) has helped spark a revolution in the way national ministries in Côte D’Ivoire monitor development plans and SDG progress. With support from UNICEF, the national government has partnered with CSF to align national ministry sectoral  plans with SDG targets through the Data For All (DFA) monitoring platform. 
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​DFA Monitoring has enabled the Ministry of Education (MoE) in Côte D’Ivoire to build their current Education Sectoral plan (ESP)-Plan d'Action du Plan Sectoriel Education-Formation 2017-2025. This monitoring platform comprises of a dashboard, mapping tool and customisable reports that allow users to better disseminate and monitor results. 

As a web-based result based management tool, DFA Monitoring facilitates the tracking of result plans. In addition, it supports the creation of a layered indicator frameworks by setting baseline values and targets at regular intervals to track progress towards the target. [1] Furthermore, DFA Monitoring allows sectors to align their indicators with national and global agendas - SDG, GPE, PND.

Through increased capacity and an innovative system, Côte D’Ivoire is able to expand the tool to be used collaboratively with other ministries’ strategic plans in a federated approach. Having trained a team of national experts on DFA Monitoring in the Delhi Lab and through in-country trainings, data specialists in key positions in the government can assess the progress of the ESP independently from technical staff and provide support to fellow national ministry officials. [2] 

With this increased capacity, Côte D’Ivoire is now able to expand how the tool is used to collaborate with other ministry’s strategic plans. 

While the MoE has input its data, the system will become even more powerful once all ministries have developed strategic plans and input their Key Performance Indicators into the DFA Monitoring system. At that time, Côte D’Ivoire will be able to create a comprehensive and unprecedented integrated national data warehouse that accounts for all sectors. Currently the national development plan (PND) and the education sectoral plans are being monitored using DFA Monitoring,

As ministries update the system in the next five years, Côte D’Ivoire will be able to use accurate and timely data to assist planners, while at the same time, increasing accountability and transparency to the ivorian citizens and partners funding development initiatives. 

Feeding in evidence-based decision-making, this national integrated planning, monitoring and evaluation system is a perfect model for other countries to adopt. It is an ideal response to the mushrooming of disconnected systems which unfortunately do not help at all in decision making. The UNICEF team is planning to further support the onboarding of other ministries on the SNIEPSE.

SNIEPSE : A model that can be replicated in other countries
During our numerous discussions with countries where we were trying to understand how best data was being used, CSF realised that though a wealth of data was being produced in countries, very little of that data was feeding in the policies. The reason turned out to be weak, non communicating and siloed systems which failed to contribute to data driven decision making. In this sense, SNIEPSE is a sustainable model for integrated and harmonised data that slowly shapes up to a national integrated data warehouse aligned with national priorities, regional and global agendas. What is being slowly built in Côte D’Ivoire is a powerful tool that will help decision makers have access to multisectorial data sets for informed policy level interventions. As an open-source technology, the platform is sustainable, affordable and also flexible and scalable.

1. Community Systems Foundation. "di Monitoring Côte d’Ivoire" 2016.  Accessed at: https://www.communitysystemsfoundation.org/uploads/1/9/9/2/19920247/unicef_cote_divoire_monitoring_2016.pdf

​2. UNICEF. "UNICEF Annual Report 2017 - Cote d'Ivoire." February 2018.  Accessed at: https://www.unicef.org/about/annualreport/files/Cote_dIvoire_2017_COAR.pdf 
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