Burkina Faso celebrates the successful technical launch of its new SDG Data Hub

From left to right: Mr. Oumar Issa Sanon, Geographical Engineer of the Geographical Institute of Burkina Faso and Stephen Keppel, President of PVBLIC Foundation.

On August 8th, 2023, in collaboration with the SDG Data Alliance, Burkina Faso held the technical launch event for its new SDG Data Hub, which has now reached its initial operating capability. The event was attended by dignitaries including Mr Halidou Nagabila, Director General of the Geographical Institute of Burkina Faso; Dr Larba Issa Kobyagda, Director General of Burkina’s Directorate General of the Economy and Planning (DGEP); Mr Soumaila Sawadogo, Director of Demography from the Institut National de la Statistique et de la Démographie; the working group and technical team of the Burkina Faso SDG Data Hub including its leader Mr Oumar Sanon and Mr. John Kedar, the SDG Data Alliance resource team lead for Burkina Faso.

The launch of the nation’s SDG Data Hub completed the crucial first step in the development process of a geospatial platform dedicated to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Specifically, it demonstrated that the solution designed by the Alliance is effective. 

This initial operating capability focuses on monitoring the indicators of SDGs 3 (Good Health and Well-Being) and 4 (Quality Education).

Demonstration of SDG 4 data-related graphics during Burkina Faso’s technical Data Hub launch.

Demonstration of SDG 4 data-related graphics during Burkina Faso’s technical Data Hub launch.

Having achieved its initial operating capability, the Burkina Faso team will now continue integrating more data covering more prioritized indicators. These indicators were the subject of a calculation workshop in July 2023 organized by the Institut National de la Statistique et de la Démographie (INSD) in collaboration with the Directorate General of the Economy and Planning (DGEP) in charge of monitoring the SDGs. Approximately 80% of these indicators have been calculated and the final list will be available after an INSD validation workshop scheduled for August 2023.

According to Oumar Issa Sanon, Geographical Engineer of the Geographical Institute of Burkina Faso, ‘’as a pilot beneficiary country, we have acquired additional know-how and technical skills with new orientation and ambitions in integrated geospatial information management; and the United Nations Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM) and the SDG Data Alliance also had to know better the national context and the development challenges that characterize our country.’’ Thus, the process enabled Burkina Faso’s monitoring departments to measure the fundamental differences between the theoretical approach and the practical reality on the ground. 

‘’The development of our SDG Data Hub serving indirectly as a functional test of the national SDG monitoring mechanism in our country, has highlighted a number of challenges related to the chain of intervention process, including the availability of disaggregated data on the Sustainable Goals at a decentralized level (region, province and municipality). It is to meet these challenges that the Burkina Faso team is moving towards an organizational and functional strategy for the system aimed, for example, at perpetuating the correct mechanism for collecting data for monitoring the SDGs and, beyond that, at ensuring spatialized results of government public policies through an application of geospatial information in the monitoring and evaluation of development projects and programs in the country. It would be a good start of what English-speaking countries call the geo-enabling of the government. In other words, the shift towards a generalized capacity to apply geospatial information at the macro-economic level in order to harvest all the profits’’, Mr. Sanon shared.

Burkina Faso is the first country on the African continent to build, complete and present its SDG Data Hub. The Burkina team had the opportunity to present their hub to their peers in Cape Town, South Africa during the annual Meeting of the Regional Committee on United Nations Global Geospatial Information Management for Africa (UN-GGIM Africa) on August 18th. 

During the event, PVBLIC and the SDG Data Alliance hosted a series of workshops called 'Accelerating the achievement of the SDGs'. During the workshops Burkina Faso proudly showcased their newly built SDG Data Hub and described the process, sharing their experience and answering questions from the more than 25 countries in attendance.

Burkina Faso’s SDG Data Hub showcase.

Join Burkina Faso as they strive for a better and more sustainable nation. You can view their SDG Data Hub here.

The collaboration between SDG Data Alliance and Burkina Faso will help advance Burkina's agenda in terms of using and demonstrating the added value of geospatial information in the management and monitoring mechanism of the SDGs. On behalf of the founding partners of the SDG Data Alliance, along with ESRI, the W.K Kellogg Foundation, and the United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (or UN-GGIM), PVBLIC Foundation takes immense pride in Burkina Faso’s efforts and steps towards the integration of geospatial data and a more precise monitoring structure in favor of the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals in the territory.