Data and Dashboards for Measuring the Social Impact of COVID-19 in African Cities

Abstract

Under the Cities COVID Mitigation Management (C2M2) project (Cites’ COVID Mitigation Mapping, MapGive, https://mapgive.state.gov/c2m2/), facility-based data was collected in several cities in Africa (Bukavu in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nairobi and Kericho in Kenya, and Pemba in Mozambique). The data included geospatial information on water access points, healthcare, and education-related facilities in these cities. In addition, for each facility, data was collected around service availability, service capacity, and service readiness. The need for data to drive decision support was clearly illustrated through feedback from local populations, i.e., a Kibera resident shared the following: “When you go to the water point, sometimes you find long lines of water jerry cans, so you have to wait for hours or even go home without water; the fact that we needed more water during the corona pandemic was very demanding physically and financially. Quite often, we had to go fetch water from far places since there is no water in our area”. In this chapter, we discuss the facility-based data model and how the data collection process, metrics, and dashboards can be used to measure impact and prepare for and mitigate the impacts of any future natural or human-made disasters.