GRID3 has been awarded a USD 3 million grant from UNOPS to support the implementation of a zero-dose vaccination project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Funded by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance’s Equity Accelerator Fund, the grant presents an important opportunity for GRID3 to continue supporting the DRC government in using core spatial data to improve vaccination outcomes.

In 2024-2025, GRID3 will support three activities in the program’s priority provinces: creation of core spatial data, identification of zero-dose children, and production of georeferenced microplans.

GRID3 will conduct a major data collection project and produce new settlement, health facility, and health zone/area boundary datasets in two provinces (Mongala and Tshopo). Existing GRID3 data will be updated in coordination with local health teams in three provinces (Kasai, Kasai-Oriental, and Haut-Katanga). Concurrently, GRID3 will build a statistical model to estimate the number of zero-dose and under-vaccinated children in four priority provinces (Maniema, Kasai-Oriental, Mongala, and Tshopo). The project team will also map data collected on zero-dose incidences and risk factors associated with under-vaccinated children, including travel time to the nearest health facility, neighborhood type, and degree of instability or conflict in the area.

Once these new data are available, GRID3 will produce microplanning maps and tables for all 11 DRC provinces included in the program. These georeferenced microplanning resources, combined with information on areas with especially high numbers of zero-dose and under-vaccinated children, can help health officials maximize efficiency in deploying the resources needed to reach zero-dose children. Finally, a series of workshops will be organized to socialize the GRID3 outputs and train health zone officials on how to use them efficiently to support microplanning efforts.

This project is an opportunity to build on and improve methods tested and validated in DRC during the Gavi-funded GRID3 Mapping for Health project in 2021-2022. This work will be delivered in collaboration with GRID3 partners CIESIN (at Columbia University), the Kinshasa School of Public Health, and WorldPop at the University of Southampton.

For more information, contact info@grid3.org.

To produce new settlement, health facility, and health zone/area boundary datasets, GRID3 teams often travel across difficult terrain to access hard-to-reach locations. These images show our work to collect data on health facilities in Kabeya-Kamwanga in 2021 and settlements in river regions in Maniema in 2024. Updated core spatial data is used to produce accurate microplanning maps (example from Haut-Katanga province pictured), which guide effective resource allocation for health campaigns.