Flowminder Foundation

Flowminder Foundation’s mission is to enable decision makers to access the data they need to transform the lives of vulnerable people, at scale, using mobile operator, geospatial, and survey data in low- and middle-income countries, especially in Africa. It does this through information and capacity strengthening to governments, mobile network operators, national and international agencies, and researchers. In particular, Flowminder brings two critical things to the data revolution table: analytical technology, and deep skill in brokering key partnerships across the public and private sectors. Flowminder has a long history of leveraging call data records for statistical analysis and decision making, while partnering closely with governments and private sector actors. From Ghana to Malawi to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Flowminder has unlocked the potential of this unique data source to help policymakers answer important questions in everything from the health space to the disaster-preparedness space. This grant will provide Flowminder with general operating support and comes at a time as it develops and puts in place a new organizationwide strategy, while looking to the next phase of several key projects that Hewlett has supported in the past, including Data for Good in Ghana, and the Open Algorithms (OPAL) Project in Senegal and Haiti. This grant supports the Evidence-Informed Policymaking goal that governments use new and traditional forms of data to improve decision making, policies, and programs.

Flowminder Foundation is a non-profit organization specialized in the use of big data for public policy and humanitarian purposes. Hewlett currently supports several key Flowminder initiatives, including its Data For Good work in Ghana, the Open Algorithms (OPAL) project in Senegal and Haiti, and its knowledge web portal called FlowGeek. As Flowminder matures as an organization, it is further formalizing its internal strategy and monitoring and evaluation functions. As a result, this grant will support Flowminder's efforts to strengthen its existing central strategic framework, with a strong focus on the learning agenda; build a monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEAL) plan around this central strategic framework; establish a proportionate organizational monitoring and evaluation program; and design and implement a sustainable organizational structure for MEAL, balancing the needs of learning, demonstrating impact, and the governance of MEAL work.

Flowminder Foundation works with governments as well as intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations to aggregate and analyze anonymous mobile operator data, satellite data, and household survey data to help improve public health and welfare in low- and middle- income countries. With this grant, Flowminder will build a new mobile data knowledge center, an online platform that serves as a central repository for technical, scientific, contextual, and practical knowledge about the analysis of anonymized mobile operator data for humanitarian and development applications. The center will be an especially timely contribution to the field, as Flowminder is quickly gathering important lessons about working with governments to use cell phone data in the context of the COVID-19 response. This program will contribute toward making mobile operator data analysis more transparent and accessible to parties in the humanitarian and development sectors, and to the Evidence-Informed Policymaking strategy goal of making new data sources and analysis accessible for use by government officials in low- and middle- income countries.