The African Development Bank (AfDB), as the premier developmental organization in the continent, supports its 54 regional member countries to reduce levels of poverty and boost economic and social progress. Reliable and timely data are vital not only for formulating the AfDB’s own strategies, and for monitoring the outcomes of its programs and projects, but also for all those who wish to ensure the continent’s future positive growth trajectory. This includes key policymakers in African countries, central banks and non-governmental organizations, subregional and regional organizations, UN agencies, multinational organizations, as well as external donors and investors.
Conference on Enhancing the Africa Information Highway: Improving Data Management and Dissemination for Enhanced Development Outcomes
The Bank completed installation of the Data Portals in all the countries and several regional organizations a couple of years ago. This mega network for easy data access, analysis and exchange has now become the African Information Highway. All participating sites have two or more focal points that were selected by their organizations as representatives. The paramount role of the focal points is to ensure that the portals are regularly updated with the most recent data. Given the success of the AIH, several peripheral but important initiatives have been developed around its umbrella position. The overall objective of the workshop is to introduce these important initiatives to the focal points and other key stakeholders as well as discuss strategies for continually increasing the use of the AIH. The workshop aims to do this through a series of presentations and discussions-including breakout sessions- involving all the aforementioned participants. Besides introducing the new initiatives, the workshop will address the following issues:
• Country data portal operations and maintenance. How is it going?
• Challenges faced by countries and how to address them?
• Innovative uses of the portals?
• Role of the Bank going forward?
• Finalization of the Governance mechanism
• Assess the direction of the initiative for the next few years
AIH Workshop documents:
- Day 1
- Day 2
- Day 3
- Day 4
- Day 5
- Open Data Platform
- AIH Conference Recommendations - Final
- Final Report on the AIH conference


