AidData says the $600,000 grant it recently secured from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation will be used to bolster its engagement with policymakers, influencers, and researchers in Africa.
The ultimate aim, according to AidData, is for data and evidence to be incorporated into the public sector decision making across sectors and at multiple levels of government.
‘The team is starting in Ghana, where AidData has worked before, and where it is already building strong relationships with two partner institutions – Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) and Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana)’, AidData said in a statement.
It is understood that with CDD-Ghana, AidData will develop new ways of measuring development outcomes within households, such as women’s empowerment and girls’ schooling experiences.
CDD-Ghana and AidData will also work together to evaluate how government institutions can more effectively disseminate information about things like health and safety precautions and farming techniques to the people who they are trying to reach.
‘AidData, CDD Ghana, and GSS each have a remarkable track record of pioneering cutting-edge ways to use data to inform decision making’, the statement quoted Programme Officer, Global Development and Population at Hewlett Foundation, Norma Altshuler, as saying.
‘Their partnerships have tremendous potential to help Ghana’s government deliver more effective programmes.
‘They will focus on opportunities that truly advance each partner’s goals, and they have invested in aligning on nuts and bolts like clear communications and equitable distributions of authorship and budgets’.
With this grant, AidData is seeking to strengthen existing African policymaking and researcher networks and also hopes to engage with a broader set of organisations on the continent.
‘For more than 12 years, the Hewlett Foundation has been a steadfast partner that has helped our organisation expand its global reach and impact’, Executive Director at AidData, Brad Parks, said.
Also, the Senior Programme Manager at AidData, Jessica Wells, said, ‘The current practice areas and research priorities of CDD-Ghana and GSS align well with our own, and the local ecosystem for evidence-informed policymaking in Ghana makes it a particularly promising setting for new partnerships.
‘We will be working on some topics that are already deeply integrated into CDD-Ghana’s work and some newer areas that are more aspirational and experimental’.
Source: AidData
Photo source: AidData
