When Australia’s Foreign Minister Julie Bishop announced a $15 million contribution to Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Data for Health initiative in March 2015, the program became a key way for Australia to improve outcomes of its overseas health aid.
Two years since its launch, Data for Health is showing its worth, allowing the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and other partners such as the CDC Foundation and Johns Hopkins University to work with governments in developing countries on evidence-based health policies. For the first time, programs covering everything from infant mortality rates to traffic deaths can draw from a robust body of data. And the early results are impressing stakeholders.
“The initiative partners with developing countries to: strengthen their data; build their capacity to analyze and assess the quality of data collected; and improve their ability to interpret, analyze, translate and use the data,” Kathryn Elliott, director of the health program and performance section with DFAT, told Devex. “In this way, countries manage their own essential public health data collection and use it to inform program and policy decisions.”
About the author
Lisa Cornishlisa_cornish
Lisa Cornish is a former Devex Senior Reporter based in Canberra, where she focuses on the Australian aid community. Lisa has worked with News Corp Australia as a data journalist and has been published throughout Australia in the Daily Telegraph in Melbourne, Herald Sun in Melbourne, Courier-Mail in Brisbane, and online through news.com.au. Lisa additionally consults with Australian government providing data analytics, reporting and visualization services.
