178
The numbers are sobering. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), with a population of around 115 million, has not held a census since 1984. Even South Africa's 2022 census, conducted with considerable resources and technical capacity, faced significant under-count issues that led statisticians to question the accuracy of key demographic data. Without reliable baseline figures, governments cannot properly track development progress, target interventions — or be held accountable. Bottom-up innovation Where traditional statistical systems fall short, innovative grassroots initiatives are filling the gap. The sensors.AFRICA project, also incubated by Code for Africa, exemplifies this approach. The pan-African citizen science initiative deploys low-cost air quality sensors — around €30 apiece — to monitor particulate matter and pollutants in cities across several countries. In Nairobi, more than 50 sensors generate real-time data that citizens and journalists use to hold polluters accountable. When residents of Syokimau, a neighbourhood 20 km from the city center, complained of thick smoke from a nearby steel plant, they contacted the sensors. The sensors documented pollution levels consistently exceeding World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. Armed with this evidence, the residents eventually forced the plant to install additional pollution controls. Such initiatives demonstrate how affordable technology, combined with community engagement, can generate actionable data where official monitoring falls short. The WHO estimates that air pollution causes seven million premature deaths globally each year, yet many African cities lack efficient air quality monitoring. DIY sensor networks, while not a replacement for comprehensive official systems, provide a crucial stopgap. Building data infrastructure Beyond individual projects, broader infrastructure is emerging to aggregate and disseminate development data. Launched in 2016, the openAFRICA project has become the continent's largest volunteer-driven open data portal. Built on the Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network’s (CKAN) open source code, it hosts thousands of datasets uploaded by civil society organizations, researchers and activists — data that would otherwise be mostly inaccessible. The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOTOSM) has pioneered perhaps the most ambitious community mapping. Since 2010, it has engaged over 200,000 volunteers who have mapped areas that are home to 150 million people across 94 countries. The Missing Maps project, a collaboration between HOTOSM, Médecins Sans Frontières and the Red Cross, maps vulnerable areas so that responders have baseline data when disasters strike. The results speak for themselves. In the DRC, OpenStreetMap data helped achieve a 95 percent vaccination rate for measles — by turning an unknown population into a fully mapped, fully reachable community. During the West Africa Ebola response in Sierra Leone (2014–2016), the maps enabled a 27 percent improvement in tracking patients' residences. In Mozambique, malaria spray campaigns used the data to reach 80 percent of homes in remote areas.
Powered by FlippingBook