Suwadu Sakho-Jimbira and Ibrahima Hathie at High Level Conference on Data Revolution – a side event of the 8th AU-ECA Conference of Ministers at Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Members of the Southern Voice network, Dr Suwadu Sakho-Jimbira and Dr Ibrahima Hathie participated in a High Level Conference on Data Revolution in Africa, which took place on 29 March 2015 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The event was organized by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).

The SV members, who are also delegates of IPAR, Senegal, engaged in a brainstorming session with data communities on issues which include education, gender, governance, development and open data. The outcome of the discussion helped produce the African Data Consensus (ADC) document.

Given that the ADC was adopted by the joint African Union-ECA conference of Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, there is a need to work at the country level for informing stakeholders about the ADC and getting their feedback on the key action points defined in the ADC document.

The SV members also engaged in an informal meeting with representatives from Development Initiative, Center for Democratic Development, APHRC, Hewlett Foundation, ONE Campaign and IPAR to discuss what strategy should be adopted at the country level regarding the ADC and how they could follow up.

Furthermore, the SV members presented the key findings of SV’s collaborative project, Post-2015 Data Test, and highlighted its reputation as one of the key initiatives in Africa centred on the data revolution.