Sierra Leone’s Ministry of Health and Sanitation and its Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) embarked on a campaign with Clinton Health Access Initiative, Gavi, GRID3, and WHO to administer HPV vaccines to ten-year-old girls throughout the country.

To support Mozambique with its COVID-19 response, GRID3 has mapped communities’ relative risk to COVID-19 and produced microplanning maps that can aid the deployment of resources around vaccination efforts. 

One of GRID3’s programmatic goals is to strengthen countries’ capacities to use geospatial data and technologies for development interventions. GRID3 delivered an extensive training of trainers (ToT) programme in Zambia which was attended by urban planners. As a result of these trainings, planning councils look to use geospatial solutions to inform integrated development plans (IDPs).

To support the National Malaria Elimination Programme with digital microplanning for an upcoming malaria bednet distribution campaign in Kano state, Nigeria, GRID3 produced 484 microplanning maps.

The GRID3 Mapping for Health project has reached a major milestone in its 19-month effort to support vaccination interventions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The Expanded Program of Immunization (EPI), under Zambia’s Ministry of Health, and GRID3 have been organising and facilitating district-level microplanning workshops. The first round of workshops were held in all of Zambia’s 10 provinces and over 2,700 health officials were trained on how to incorporate GRID3 maps into their COVID-19 vaccination microplans. 

This January saw the release of new population estimates for seven provinces in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC): Haut-Katanga, Haut-Lomami, Ituri, Kasaï, Kasaï-Oriental, Lomami, and Sud-Kivu.

For microplanning ahead of the 2021 indoor residual spraying campaign led by Zambia’s National Malaria Elimination Programme, GRID3 and Akros developed improved maps featuring field-mapped health facility catchment boundaries and updated residential structure counts using GRID3 settlement extents. 

In recent months, a consortium of governmental and international bodies initiated the latest round of the multi-sector Food Security and Nutrition Monitoring System (FSNMS+) survey in South Sudan. The survey uses GRID3 population estimates to calculate population per enumeration area.

Nigeria’s National Primary Health Care Development Agency has partnered with GRID3 to improve microplanning for its Non-Polio Supplementary Immunisation Activities campaign. The agency is using 9,308 ward-level maps produced by GRID3 to prepare microplans ahead of the next campaign, set to start in November 2021.

In collaboration with MBSSE, the GRID3 team at Flowminder carried out an analysis using GIS and its optimisation algorithm to improve radio coverage and enhance education access during disease outbreaks.

Enumeration for South Sudan’s Population Estimation Survey (PES) has been completed, marking the end of the single largest data collection effort in the country’s history.

GRID3 has released 50 new datasets that can support countries looking to use nuanced, data-driven approaches to controlling the spread of the novel coronavirus. These data provide information on urban areas in sub-Saharan Africa where population density and the spatial arrangement of buildings may make it difficult to maintain physical distancing (also known as “social distancing”). 

GRID3 has updated its high-resolution gridded population estimates which provides timely population data for the Government of South Sudan and other decision-makers. GRID3 South Sudan technical experts produced the estimates by combining 2008 county level census data collected by the National Bureau of Statistics with field-collected displacement data from IOM (through its Displacement Tracking Matrix) and UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency.

GRID3 has produced datasets, featuring high-resolution modelled population estimates and maps to complement Burkina Faso’s 2019 census results.

The Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education (MBSSE) in Sierra Leone and GRID3 jointly released a School Coverage Analysis in Sierra Leone report which identifies where children are located relative to schools based on national targets.

The Government of Nigeria collaborated with researchers from the United Kingdom’s University College London (UCL) to study, using GRID3 Nigeria’s gridded population estimates, the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 — the virus causing the COVID-19 disease — across Nigeria.

GRID3 Zambia partnered with Akros, National Malaria Elimination Programme (NMEP), PATH and President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) to create maps as a low-cost solution that can contribute significantly to controlling malaria in the country. The maps display GRID3 population estimates, settlement extents with estimated residential structure counts, schools, health facilities and village names. These datasets were developed with multiple Zambian government agencies.

Sierra Leone’s government is reacting fast and in innovative ways to ensure the safety of its citizens. Together with Esri, Fraym, GPSDD, Maxar and UNECA, the government produced crucial geospatial datasets, analyses, and tools to support the COVID-19 response in Sierra Leone.

GRID3 and the Government of Zambia have produced gridded population estimates, led by the Zambia Statistics Agency (ZamStats) to support the country’s humanitarian and development planning and operations across the country.

On 16 April 2020, an earthquake with a 4.5 magnitude and depth of 10km struck the Luapula Province in Zambia. The GRID3 Zambia team produced high resolution maps, showcasing the number of people potentially at risk based on their location in relation to the epicentre of the earthquake.

As the outbreak of the new coronavirus begins to extend into sub-Saharan Africa, GRID3 is marshalling its data resources and capacities to help partner governments plan rapid, effective responses.

To support Nigeria’s Universal Basic Educational Commission (UBEC) in improving access to education, GRID3 Nigeria used geospatial data to analyse the location of current schools to Nigeria’s school-age population and recommend new school locations.

To understand measles vaccination coverage, the GRID3 Nigeria team, following a request from the PCCS working group, analysed data produced from the PCCS survey in February 2019. The team also compared results from their analyses to previous PCCS coverage estimates using the 2013 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey and the 2016-17 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey / National Immunisation Coverage Survey.

In an effort to understand the true extent of vaccine-preventable deaths, the GRID3 Mapping for Health team in close coordination with DRC’s Ministry of Health utilised a participatory mapping approach to map settlements, health facilities and delineate health area boundaries. This information is crucial to developing vaccination strategies and assembling the appropriate resources required for targeted interventions.