Improving access to quality data in fragility and conflict contexts: The case of Central Sahel countries

Generally speaking, political instability, armed conflicts, and low population density create significant challenges to collecting, accessing, and disseminating quality data. This is especially true in central Sahel countries (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, and Niger), which are relatively vast with low population densities, ranging from 65 inhabitants per km² in Burkina Faso to 14 inhabitants per km² in Niger or less in other countries, and are characterized by recurrent armed conflicts.

Despite these numerous challenges, there have been notable improvements in the production of quality data, as well as in access and dissemination, over the past decade in Sahel countries. For example, after the successful completion of three statistics projects—Chad Statistical Development Project; Improving Mali’s Statistical System Project; and Quality Data for Decision Making Project respectively in Chad, Mali and Niger—financed by the World Bank, these countries continue to strengthen their statistical frameworks through the World Bank’s Harmonizing and Improving Statistics in West and Central Africa (HISWACA) project. Burkina Faso has also benefited from an improvement in its statistical infrastructure with World Bank support through the ongoing Harmonizing and Improving Statistics in West Africa (HISWA) project. The regional program to Harmonize and Modernize Living Conditions Surveys has also contributed to improving the supply of quality data, particularly on poverty monitoring.

Figure: Improvement in Statistical Capacities in the Sahel over the Decade

^{Source: World Bank (https://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/statistical-performance-indicators) and Open Data Inventory (https://odin.opendatawatch.com/)}

Central Sahel countries have witnessed a significant improvement in their statistical performance over the past decade, as evidenced by the Open Data Inventory (ODIN) and Statistical Performance Indicators (SPI) scores. In 2024, Burkina Faso ranks 27th in the world and second in Africa, tied with Morocco, in terms of the ODIN Score which assesses the coverage and openness of official statistics. Meanwhile, Niger ranks 55th globally and 4th in Africa, just after Senegal. Other Sahel countries, such as Mali and Chad, rank in the middle among African nations, securing the 18th and 25th positions, respectively.

This is quite an achievement for countries that are fragile and facing conflicts. This remarkable performance is backed up by SPI scores, which indicate that the statistical performance of these four Sahel countries have significantly improved since the mid-2010s. Indeed, the Sahel countries, which were performing below the average for sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in 2020, have seen a significant increase in their performance over three years, surpassing the SSA average in 2023.

This performance is primarily attributed to the enhancement of statistical production. Statistical projects in these countries, including those financed by the World Bank, have strengthened the National Statistical Systems (NSS) and increased the quality and availability of surveys, censuses, macroeconomic and sectoral statistics. In addition to routinely collected economic, education, and health statistics, there has been an expansion into typically under-covered sectors such as justice, tourism, crafts, youth, culture, arts, mining, environment, interior, water resources, and sanitation, among others. Moreover, innovative approaches, such as phone surveys or the use of drones and satellite data, are sometimes considered helpful in overcoming challenges related to conflicts. For instance, in Burkina Faso, the use of innovative data collection systems made it possible to estimate the population of conflict affected areas during the 2019 population census.

Another reason for this strong performance is the availability of statistics through appropriate data dissemination channels. For instance, in Burkina Faso and Niger, the national Open Data Portal (ODP) platform, along with some of its data, is accessible on the website of the National Statistics Offices (NSO). These platforms also exist in Mali and Chad but need to be revitalized to further improve data accessibility in these two countries. In all countries, statistical projects helped modernize the NSS, especially the NSO, its central agency, through material and equipment such as computers, and modern equipment for data collection, processing, dissemination, and archiving.

Moreover, training and study programs in the past and ongoing projects support efforts to improve the human resources capacity of the Sahel countries in production, dissemination, and use of statistics. These programs—many of which are supported by the World Bank—also improve the capacity of the NSS to plan and coordinate statistical activities. In total, more than 700 scholarships have been provided to students to take training in statistics and related fields such as demography and data science, supported by past and present projects across central Sahel countries. The staff of the NSO and other beneficiaries of the NSS network also received several on-the-job training courses and study tours that further helped build statistical capacity in these countries. Indeed, more than a thousand people in the region received training during the first half of the 2020s.

The central Sahel is set to continue improving its statistical performance, particularly in data access and dissemination, with the support of ongoing statistical projects that place a special emphasis on the use of data through analyses based on the statistical outputs of the NSS. To better embrace innovative data collection approaches, training will continue and expand to more modern disciplines such as big data, artificial intelligence, computational statistics, geographic information systems (GIS), and geomatics, among others.