Flowminder Foundation

Flowminder Foundation is a nonprofit organization that specializes in the analysis of anonymous mobile phone data, satellite imagery, and household survey data for humanitarian and development purposes. In partnership with Vodafone Ghana and Ghana Statistical Services (GSS), Flowminder is supporting GSS to use metrics derived from aggregated, de-identified Call Detail Records (cell phone data) in the production of national statistics and to inform evidence-based decision making in government policies and interventions. This grant advances the Evidence-Informed Policymaking goal that governments in East and West Africa make use of new and traditional forms of data to improve decision making and outcomes for people.

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.