Some detailed sections are in English only for now.
Data. Systems. Innovation. Transformation.
IDIA helps national and local decision makers across Africa, and the partners who support them, turn routine data into trusted evidence and better decisions.
IDIA was founded by the principal investigator of the Data Analytics, Systems, and Use (DASU) project, funded by the Gates Foundation. His experience leading DASU helped shape IDIA's mission: to catalyze innovation and knowledge creation and management, generate actionable insights, and support technology adaptation and scaling of solutions that change whole systems.
DASU was a separate project, implemented with the Amhara Regional Health Bureau, the Amhara Public Health Institute, Ethiopian government and academic partners, and the University of Manitoba. Countdown to 2030 for Women's, Children's and Adolescents' Health provided technical support through its global network across five continents. DASU progressed from a jointly designed pilot to regional use. Its outputs included:
IDIA was not a DASU partner. DASU outputs, which also included analytical capacity building and scientific manuscripts, are shown to describe our founder's experience and belong to the project and its partners.
IDIA is an African non-governmental institute governed by a board, registered in Ethiopia in 2023 and operational since 2026, with its head office in Addis Ababa.
Our founder's experience leading DASU showed what works when governments, universities and data come together. IDIA exists to take that kind of work further, across African countries and across sectors that depend on good data.
Our ambition is to be a center for research, innovation and collaboration, working with national, regional and global partners.
Transform how Africa generates, governs, and uses data by embedding innovation, analytics, AI, and local capability where decisions are made.
A data-empowered Africa advancing systems for equity and resilience.
All our programs follow one continuous loop of eight stages in four phases: understand, know, act and learn. Innovation and technologies sit at the center and power every stage. DASU, led by our founder, showed that this approach works at scale.
Interactive double loop with eight numbered stages in four phases: Understand, Know, Act and Learn. Innovation and technologies sit at the center and connect to every stage. A dot moves around the outer ring and each stage lights up as the dot reaches it. Use the buttons or the arrow keys to move between stages.
Enables across the loop
Innovation & Technologies throughout
Example · Childhood immunization in one district
What happens
Takes in
Where it usually breaks
Who does what
Feeds back into
Partners across every stage: public institutions, private sector, academia, communities and civil society, and development partners co-design, govern, implement and learn together.
Longer-term aim: stronger systems and lasting change, measured through documented results.
Brings routine, survey, CRVS and geospatial data together, checks them against each other, and turns them into analysis fast.
A searchable library of briefs and analyses, a toolkit for judging evidence, and a small team that answers urgent questions quickly.
Training at three levels, accredited courses run with universities, and fellowships inside government.
RMNCAH+N analytics, health information systems, performance and data quality monitoring, and policy briefs on priority topics.
Feedback loops, AI data review, surveillance tools, e-learning, and AI developed with African universities.
Disparities by gender, wealth and place; combined health, education, nutrition and WASH data; mapping of remote communities.
Pilots and sandbox projects with universities, startups, telecoms and fintech, and support for new digital health solutions.
Linking weather, climate, crop and food security data with health data, so ministries can see disease linked to climate and malnutrition risks early and act before outbreaks and shortages. Agriculture and food systems are a core part of this work.
The same cycle, from data to decision, works wherever governments plan services. We proved it in health and are applying it to four more sectors.
Routine health facility data, data quality, performance dashboards and evidence to policy and practice pathways, approaches proven at scale in DASU, led by our founder.
Early warning that links rainfall and temperature to disease and nutrition risk, so services can prepare.
Crop, soil and food security data joined with health and nutrition data, so farm and health planning share one picture.
School and learning data for planning, plus applied analytics training and student projects with universities.
Analytics that track public budgets against results and show who financial services still miss.
Three ventures built on what our team learned working with governments and communities.
Each tool does one job in the cycle from data to decision. Eight apply approaches proven at scale in DASU, the project our founder led. The rest are being built on that experience, designed to work with DHIS2 and to be run by government teams.
Clean, complete data before anyone analyzes it.
Flags incomplete, late or inconsistent facility reports and sends them back for correction.
Pulls routine health facility data from DHIS2, plus survey data, so no one retypes spreadsheets.
Machine learning that spots implausible values and patterns a person would miss.
Turn data into evidence, at the level where decisions are made.
Prepared routines for DHS and other household surveys.
Calculates program indicators the same way, every month, for every district.
Shows who is being left behind, by place, wealth and gender.
Put the right evidence in front of decision makers.
Power BI dashboards that monitor health system performance and track progress, reviewed each month by national and local decision makers.
Maps service gaps and suggests where staff, supplies and outreach will reach the most people.
Combines rainfall, temperature, crop and health data to flag districts at rising risk of malaria, cholera or malnutrition.
Put evidence to use, close the loop and build skills.
Turns analysis into policy briefs endorsed by government, then into actions that teams agree and follow up at review meetings.
Mobile alerts so facilities see and fix problems within a week.
Courses on data use that health workers take at their own pace.
Make systems work together, and test new ideas safely.
Moves data between DHIS2 and other systems without typing it in again.
A safe space to pilot new tools on real, de-identified data.
Built for district, regional and national teams, and for partners tracking results.
"Approach proven in DASU" means the method was used at scale in the DASU project. The DASU tools themselves belong to that project and its partners.
Interactive visualizations built from open data. Explore them, share them, and use them in your own briefings.
Visualizations use public data from the sources cited in each one. Interpretations are IDIA's and do not represent the views of the data providers.
Watch 151 countries move through five phases of the maternal, stillbirth and newborn mortality transition, 1960 to 2023. View the world or zoom into Africa, pick countries, follow their paths, and compare them with Sub-Saharan Africa.
Open the explorer →
A living world map of the same transition. Watch countries change color year by year from 1990, zoom into Africa, and switch to Progress to see who moved fastest since 2000.
Open the atlas →New explorers are added here as they are released. Have data that deserves a visual? Write to [email protected].
Our training draws on two pathways developed in DASU: a nationally accredited in-service module on routine data use, available through Ethiopia's iHRIS platform, and an academic module in three tiers developed with Bahir Dar University.
| Level | For | Covers |
|---|---|---|
| Leadership | Sector leaders, directors and senior managers | Actionable insights: reading dashboards and briefs, asking the right questions of data, and using evidence in planning, budgets and review meetings |
| Operations | Facility and program managers, HMIS and IT teams | Automated data systems, workflow efficiency, and using data to improve the quality of service delivery |
| Private sector | Businesses, start-ups, entrepreneurs and innovation hubs | Data-driven innovation, using evidence to create employment and jobs, and measuring social impact alongside business results |
| Philanthropy | Foundations, philanthropists, donors and their program teams | Measuring social impact, knowledge generation and transfer, and using evidence to guide grant making and learning |
| Foundation | Planners and program officers | Reading data, visualization, data stories |
| Intermediate | M&E and technical staff | Excel, Power BI, Stata, R |
| Advanced | Analysts and researchers | Modeling, machine learning, causal inference |
Leadership sessions are short and practical, built around each team's own data. We also run workshops and webinars, offer mentorship and fellowships, and keep a knowledge library for learning at your own pace.
DASU proved the model in Ethiopia. IDIA is built to take it further, one step at a time, with each government owning what it adopts.
Offices open in Addis Ababa and Bahir Dar.
Drawing on training pathways developed in DASU.
AI-enabled digital systems, geospatial coverage optimizer, and data innovation hub.
Trying new tools in safe settings, then scaling what works.
Developing integrated solutions across health, climate, agriculture, education and finance.
Adapting and scaling approaches across diverse contexts.
Opening IDIA to experts and institutions who want to shape its work.
We work with funders, government, universities, NGOs, UN agencies and technology companies.
Membership for individuals and institutions opens soon. Write to [email protected] to be told when it does.
Openings, fellowships and internships are on the Careers page.
IDIA is governed by a board of five members that sets strategy, approves budgets and oversees management.
IDIA’s founder, Dessalegn brings expertise in global health, health systems, data science, and digital innovation. He led the completed Gates Foundation-funded DASU project and received a special recognition award from a government partner for his contribution. He is Ethiopia Country Lead for Countdown to 2030, based at the University of Manitoba, and adjunct faculty at Bahir Dar University.
A former director of the Adet Agricultural Research Center at ARARI, Assefa brings expertise in crop and soil science, watershed management, and translating research into practice. His experience supports IDIA’s agriculture and climate work.
Zelalem brings experience leading relief, development, and humanitarian programs in Ethiopia and internationally. Trained in horticulture, he helps keep community priorities central to IDIA’s agriculture and cross-sector work.
An internal medicine specialist, Molla brings clinical experience to IDIA’s health work. He helps ensure that health systems and digital tools support clinicians and person-centered care.
A mathematics faculty member at Bahir Dar University, Simachew teaches applied mathematics to engineering students. He supports student capstone projects and helps assess IDIA’s ideas using data.
An advisory board of experts from government, academia and development partners is being formed.
IDIA is building its first partnerships. Partners are listed here as agreements are signed.
Connections across continents
IDIA's founders and partners have built a network across Africa, North America, South America, Europe and Australia. We aim to grow it to extend our reach in global health. Tap or click a point on the map to see its link.
This website does not use cookies. Visits are counted with web analytics that collects no personal data. If you email us, we use your details only to reply.
Mentions of governments, universities, funders and projects describe past or related work and do not imply their endorsement of IDIA. Figures from the DASU project belong to that project and its partners.
Melesse DY et al. BMJ Global Health 2024. PubMed
The project, funded by the Gates Foundation and led by IDIA's founder, was implemented with the Amhara Regional Health Bureau, the Amhara Public Health Institute, Ethiopian government and academic partners, and the University of Manitoba. Its outputs included Power BI dashboards tracking 175+ health system indicators and a routine data quality feedback system. dasu.cdipp.org
Impact stories, learning briefs, case studies and tool guides will be added here as they are published.
What IDIA and the work it builds on have been doing, and where to meet us.
IDIA's new website opens with the Data Lens: the Mortality Transition Explorer and the Transition Atlas, built on UN estimates and updated automatically. Explore the Data Lens
IDIA's founder received a Special Recognition Award for the DASU work.
Offices open in Addis Ababa and Bahir Dar.
Webinars, workshops and talks will be listed here with dates, places and how to join.
To invite IDIA to speak, or to run a workshop on data use for your team, write to [email protected] with "Event" in the subject.
For interviews, comments or images of IDIA's work, write to [email protected] with "Media" in the subject. Data Lens visuals can be reused with credit to IDIA and the data sources cited in each one.
We are building a team that turns data into better decisions across Africa. Here is how you can be part of it.
There are no open positions right now. New roles will be posted on this page first. You are welcome to send an expression of interest at any time.
Early-career analysts work alongside government health teams on real data and real decisions, with mentoring from IDIA. Fellowships open as funding allows.
For students in data science, epidemiology, biostatistics, public health, computer science and related fields who want supervised, practical research experience.
Specialists in analytics, AI, geospatial work, health systems, evaluation, climate, agriculture or education can join our roster for project work.
Experienced professionals who want to give time and advice to strengthen data systems in Africa.
Short answers to common questions. You can also use Chat with IDIA at the bottom right, or write to [email protected].
The Institute for Data Innovation Africa is an African non-governmental institute, headquartered in Addis Ababa. We help national and local decision makers, and the partners who support them, turn routine data into trusted evidence and better decisions. More about us
No. DASU was a separate project, funded by the Gates Foundation and implemented with the Amhara Regional Health Bureau, the Amhara Public Health Institute, Ethiopian partners and the University of Manitoba. IDIA was founded by DASU's principal investigator and builds on that experience. DASU outputs belong to the project and its partners.
We start in Ethiopia and work towards partner countries across Africa, with a network that reaches five continents. See how we plan to scale
Health is our foundation. We also work on climate, agriculture, education and finance, because the same path from data to decision applies across sectors. Sectors
Write to [email protected] and tell us which decision you want to improve. We work with governments, funders, universities, NGOs, UN agencies and technology companies. Partner with us
Yes, from leadership briefings for sector leaders to foundation, intermediate and advanced courses in data analytics and use. Training and capacity building
Yes. Demos are available on request for our climate and health, maternal and newborn health, and circular economy work. Write to [email protected] with "Demo" in the subject. Innovations
From UN estimates of maternal deaths, stillbirths and newborn deaths, and UN population data, published through the World Bank. The visualizations check for updated estimates automatically. Each one cites its sources. Data Lens
It follows the published transition model, which studied the 151 countries with at least 1 million people in 2000. You can add the smaller countries with a checkbox, with a note on why they were left out of the study.
Yes. Please credit IDIA and the data sources named in each visualization. Interpretations are IDIA's and do not represent the views of the data providers.
Data belongs to the institutions and communities it describes. We use de-identified or aggregate data wherever possible, follow national data protection law and data sharing agreements, and keep access limited. This website does not use cookies. Our data principles
See the Careers page for openings, fellowships, internships and the expert roster.
Write to [email protected] and also copy [email protected]. Contact details
Tell us which decision you are trying to improve, and we will tell you how data could help.
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Bahir Dar, Amhara Region, Ethiopia
