Teaming Up for Data

This week’s Fist Bump Friday goes out to the VectorLink Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) Team for facilitating a third and final regional training in Accra, Ghana, on the use of the VectorLink Collect DHIS 2 database for all IRS data management and reporting.  With this final push, in 2020, we will have all 16 spray countries using the system! From January 27-30, 2020, 13 VectorLink M&E managers and database managers from six countries (Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Ethiopia, Senegal, and Uganda) learned the fundamentals of the VectorLink Collect system and are now equipped with the skills necessary to support all IRS data collection, data cleaning, reporting requirements, and critical skills in the development and use of visualizations to enhance data use. The training team included several home office M&E staff, our VectorLink Collect system administrator, and special participation by our VectorLink Madagascar M&E Manager who brought practical lessons learned based on his team’s recent rollout of the system. 

All participants remained extremely engaged throughout the sessions, asking relevant (and sometimes difficult) questions and taking advantage of the opportunity to exchange in-person with country counterparts. Our country M&E participants even created a WhatsApp group to remain in contact with their colleagues. Our team in Benin has already cascaded relevant training content to their colleagues in preparation for IRS campaigns and the entomology database roll out throughout Year 3!

Congrats to all of you who support M&E out there!