In June 2021, the government of Sierra Leone released its new School Infrastructure and Catchment Area Planning policy. Laying the foundation for increased access to safe, quality education, the document draws extensively upon insights from the GRID3 Education Coverage in Sierra Leone report. The policy was also informed by additional school catchment mapping conducted by GRID3 in collaboration with Fab Inc.

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 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’s support across various African borders enabled over a million US dollars in savings for Liberia’s government in a recent purchase of high-resolution satellite imagery. These funds can now be used to make other critical investments that modernise Liberia’s geospatial capabilities for census and national population data systems.

Accurate and accessible geospatial data plays a pivotal role in district planning for Zimba District, Zambia, where planners are trying to facilitate development. Through an interview with Josephine Chiila, District Planning Officer in Zimba, we learn how GRID3 population, settlement and infrastructure data are being used to identify service provision gaps and inform future development decisions.

The first joint meeting of the GRID3 Nigeria National Steering and Technical Committees took place on Monday, February 10th, at the Federal Ministry of Finance headquarters in Abuja. The meeting was convened by the Chair of the Steering Committee, Mrs. Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed, who is the Minister of Finance, Budget, and National Planning.

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.

The Nigerian Universal Basic Educational Commission (UBEC) and GRID3 Nigeria are working together to apply new geospatial data to achieve the desired impact of education for all Nigerians and reduce the rate of out-of-school children in the country.