Building an integrated data platform for early child development in Malawi

Like many low-income countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, Malawi is burdened with high rates of maternal, infant and childhood mortality and undernutrition. These are driven by multiple factors that interact over space and time. Coupled with economic and gender inequalities, factors that operate across early childhood (0-8 years) result in many children failing to achieve their educational potential. At a national level this impedes economic development and perpetuates a cycle of poverty.
A holistic, unified, approach to data acquisition of key factors impacting early child development, data sharing and linkage to existing datasets, statistical analyses and mathematical modelling, is required to identify which children are at greatest need of intervention. We aim to achieve this by building a new data platform for early child development in Malawi by harmonising geo-temporal data that already exists, courtesy of national surveys conducted by the Government of Malawi, with data from ongoing projects undertaken by our team of researchers and NGO partners, relating to early educational outcomes, maternal and infant health, and micronutrients in soil and crop samples taken from plots where food is grown for consumption in family homes. Integrating these datasets into a large-scale national data platform will enable secondary analyses to be conducted, that have hitherto, not been possible.
This will transform early child development and learning outcomes in Malawi, and requires collaboration and cooperation of key stakeholders to bring about long-term, sustainable, change. Current policy for mothers and children in Malawi is covered by three separate government ministries. A lack of joined up planning, acquisition, and sharing of key data means that opportunities to intervene at an early stage may be lost. Currently, it is not possible to track individual children from pregnancy to 8 years and identify those most at risk of adverse outcomes. This leaves Malawi vulnerable to continued poor early child development and the long-term negative impact this has on the country's economic development and welfare.
Over the past year, we have established a multidisciplinary team of international researchers from psychology, biosciences, maternal, child, and public health, big data science, and international law on data protection and governance, with NGOs, policy-makers, and policy-enablers from key government sectors in Malawi, all of whom are committed to improving quality of life for young children and their families. We have identified the need for a unified data management system in Malawi, that is compliant with General Data Protection Regulation legislation, and will enable NGO and research data to be integrated with national government survey data.
Accordingly, in this project we propose to build a new data platform that will harmonise existing datasets from NGOs, the Government of Malawi, and ongoing research projects in Malawi, to enable secondary analyses to be conducted that will identify causal pathways of adverse outcomes in early childhood. Results from these secondary data analyses will enhance understanding of factors that impact early child development and learning and will be utilised by NGOs and the Government of Malawi to make strategic decisions based on scientific evidence to enhance the effectiveness of their programmes and policies. The new data platform will be hosted within the Ministry of Gender and will be an ongoing, sustainable resource, improving the capacity and methods for secondary data research in Malawi and will act as a demonstration of potential to other developing nations. This project is timely as it will increase high-quality, impactful and relevant research in Malawi and other ODA contexts on factors influencing early childhood outcomes. The results of the project will impact generations of children in Malawi and other countries in the region facing similar development challenges.

This interdisciplinary project will investigate consolidating datasets from NGOs, the Government of Malawi, and research projects being conducted across Malawi, into an integrated data platform, that will enable secondary data analyses to be conducted, the results of which will enhance understanding of key factors that impact early child development and learning outcomes in Malawi and other low-to-middle-income countries (LMICs) in the region.

The main beneficiaries of the project are: (i) international and national NGOs implementing programmes targeted at improving early childhood outcomes operating in Malawi and other LMICs facing similar challenges, (ii) the Government of Malawi, especially the ministries of Gender, Health, and Education who are responsible for early child development and learning, (iii) allied professional services, including staff working at hospitals, early learning centres, and primary schools, and (iv) current and future generations of young children and their families living and growing up in Malawi and other LMICs across Sub-Saharan Africa.

They will benefit from the research through:
Capacity building: An integrated data platform for early child development is unique and will be co-designed in a workshop at the start of the project to ensure it is fit for purpose by multiple end users. All UK and Malawian researchers, NGO partners - VSO and D-Tree International, delegates from the Malawi Government ministries of Gender, Health, and Education, and researchers from the University of Cape Town who are leading the Drakenstein Child Health Study in South Africa will participate in this workshop, which will increase their capacity to interact with the data platform, enhance their competencies to implement research-informed programmes and policies, and foster cross-country comparisons. Our main NGO partner, VSO, will build capacity through this project as it aligns directly with their signature education and health programmes. VSO will apply the findings from the secondary data analyses conducted during this project with their education outcomes data from the Unlocking Talent alliance and data from a new birth cohort study to drive and shape their education and health programming, ensure key questions from their signature education and health programmes can be addressed by the new data platform, and base programmatic decisions on scientific evidence to enhance effectiveness of their programmes.
Instrumental impact: The new data platform will be hosted by the Ministry of Gender within the Government of Malawi and will facilitate economic forecasting of the effects of poor childhood outcomes on broader sectors of society. It will enable the Government of Malawi to evaluate the impact of their policies and programmes on current early childhood outcomes in different regions across the country and at different points in time. Sustained use of the platform will enable evaluation of the long-term impact of any changes to policy and programming they make, as a result of the new knowledge gained through this research. NGOs can also submit their programme data for secondary analysis within the platform. This will bring about practice change for these organisations through engaging with open data practices and using scientific findings to inform strategic decision making on effective programming.
Conceptual impact: Interrogating the platform through secondary data analyses will enhance understanding of key factors that impact early childhood outcomes. Results will inform NGO practice and government policy. A launch workshop in the penultimate month of the project will raise awareness of this work to other NGOs operating in Malawi (UNICEF, Action Aid, and Save the Children), enhancing its reach and utility. Ultimately, this will improve provision of services for young children and their families in Malawi through evidence-based practice and policies which will result in improved outcomes for young children.