Sierra Leone

“We need a concerted global effort from Member States, the UN system, private sector, and others, to promote open source software, open data, open AI models, open standards, and open content that adhere to privacy, applicable laws, and do no harm. These have vast potential to help us achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.”  United Nations…, Establishing the Pathfinder Countries, Starting in early 2020, selected countries eligible for receiving overseas development assistance (ODA) will help further evolve the digital public goods platform and alliance through initial implementation on the ground. This will provide both on the ground results through localization of existing digital public goods and the development of new…, DPG Pathfinder Countries

The COVID-19 outbreak has created a climate that poses a colossal threat, now and in the future, to children and their families —a grim reality especially compounded among children already affected by poverty, disability, or social exclusion. The global school shutdowns and health crisis have exacerbated already challenging realities for lower-…, Giga Initiatives supporting communities during COVID-19:, Critical Software and Content: We’re identifying, strengthening, and scaling proven and new innovations in software, learning systems, and content that support telework, tele-education, tele-health, and financial services –all of which can be deployed at low-cost, scale, and customized to local languages.   Broadband Connectivity: We’re developing…, Examples of Giga's Impact, Giga has helped the Government of Kyrgyzstan generate $200k savings per year (40% of its education connectivity budget). By seeing all the schools and their corresponding connectivity on a map, the Government was able to renegotiate contracts and subsequently reduce prices by almost half (from $50/month to $28.5/month) and to almost double speeds…, Global Updates, Girl looking at an ipad UNICEF/UN0299581/Herwig Giga is anchored and recommended in the Secretary-General's High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation: Recommendation 1B which calls for the UN to create and provide access to vital “Digital Public Goods,” and Recommendation 1A which calls for universal access to connectivity. IHS Towers joins Giga. …, What's next, Moving full-speed to connect every school, raising public and private funding to connect every school by putting forward several countries as “accelerated” actors in Giga.  Sharing key open-source remote education tools, as well as innovations in software, learning systems, and content that support tele-work, tele-education, tele-health, and…

Freetown, Sierra Leone: Kumba Musa is a data scientist and machine learning expert at DSTI, where she teaches policymakers and academics how to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools to clean, analyse, and visualise data. Ms. Musa joined 50 artificial intelligence experts from different countries, who gathered at UNICEF in New York City to take…

“Science and technology is the bedrock for the development of any modern economy." Julius Maada Bio, President of Sierra Leone With these words President Bio laid the foundations for Sierra Leone’s Directorate of Science, Technology and Innovation (DSTI) during his speech at the State Opening Of Parliament in Sierra Leone. Housed in the Office of…

The case of UNICEF Sierra Leone’s response to the flooding and mudslide of August 2017 is a clear example of how the social messaging platform U-Report can be a powerful tool to keep the voice of community members at the heart of the design, implementation and course correction of humanitarian response programmes. Sierra Leone remains among the world’s poorest countries, ranking 179 out of 188 countries in the Human Development Index in 2016. In recent years, Sierra Leone has been dealing with the devastating impact of the 2014–2015 Ebola virus epidemic, which saw nearly 13,500 cases and almost 4,000 deaths. It was during this epidemic that UNICEF first set up U-Report – a free social messaging tool that is both an information delivery system as well as a platform for community engagement.

The sheer scale of the devastation witnessed in and around Freetown, Sierra Leone is difficult to comprehend. One early morning in August, after days of torrential rains, Sugar Loaf mountain partially collapsed and sent tons of mud and rock avalanching over houses, killing hundreds of people. Many people were killed in their sleep, trapped inside…, Rapid response, The day the mudslide happened, U-Reporters immediately started sending messages reporting on what had happened. This allowed UNICEF, with funding from USAID, to quickly respond to the emergency and send messages to around 2,000 people in the affected areas.Thousands of responses were analysed in real-time and highlighted people’s biggest concerns…

With about only 200 practicing medical doctors in Sierra Leone, most of the country’s more than six million citizens don’t often come into close contact with a physician. Instead, the first point of contact for many, particularly in remote rural communities, are the country’s community health workers (CHWs) – ordinary community residents who have…, Mapping, Lucy Lawal, the head nurse at the Deep Eye Water community in rural Freetown is in the process of recording the exact GPS coordinates of one of the 21 CHWs in her catchment area, something made possible through training and support from UNICEF. “ Before our training, we did not know about GPS. We thought it is a very complicated thing to do. So,…, Results, The nationwide exercise has created a treasure-trove of data to explore. In total, 14,622 working CHWs have been mapped across all districts in the country. This geo-mapping exercise has opened our eyes and has also falsified our assumptions,” said Dr Joseph Kandeh, the director of Primary health care at the Ministry. “We never expected, for…, The use of the Geo-mapping data, Moving forward, this geo-mapping exercise will help the Ministry of Health and Sanitation prepare for the integration of CHW volunteers into the formal health system, including the national human resource management tool (iHRIS). A trainer teaches three nurses on how to use the GPS for the CHW geo-mapping during the training A trainer teaches…

RapidPro would probably be a good name for an over-the-counter painkiller. The name fits, and as we’ve repeatedly found in Sierra Leone it gets to work….fast. And, its latest incarnation has been aptly medical – we wanted to know if we could use it to track the nationwide distribution of free health care drugs and supplies that takes place every…

Originally posted on UNICEF’s Connect blog on May 6, 2015.   When the President of Sierra Leone announced that schools would reopen this Spring even if Ebola cases weren’t down to zero, we knew we were in for a challenge. There were all sorts of complexities given the health emergency, like making schools safe, and decontaminating sites that had…

Today was an awesome day:  we soft launched U-report in Sierra Leone ! When we arrived in Freetown on Monday, the idea of launching U-report by week’s end seemed like something caused by overexposure to chlorine fumes. As the week progressed, all of the pieces fell into place. And here we are, 75 users strong and growing fast.   We’ll write more…