Thank you for this post. The four pillars align closely with challenges we see at healthsites.io, a Digital Public Good maintaining an open, community-validated health facility registry built on OpenStreetMap.
The data pillar resonates most sharply. Fragmented, missing, or inaccurate facility data is often the invisible constraint sitting upstream of every prioritisation and delivery decision described here. You can't plan portfolio-based innovation introduction if you don't know where facilities are, what services they offer, or whether that information is current and trusted.
In Senegal, we’re addressing this through UUID-based linkage across the master facility list, ANSD boundaries, and DHIS2:
With ENDA Santé as an ALIGN partner and Senegal a focus country, there’s a clear opportunity to build on existing open, interoperable infrastructure, rather than duplicating it.
Key questions:
→ How does the theory of change incorporate existing Digital Public Goods?
→ How will ALIGN engage the data commons (OSM, civil society, CHWs) as active participants?
→ What does “whole-of-market” mean when it includes open-source and volunteer networks?
We're inviting support for our next campaign to map the medical region of Tambacounda. If you’re a mapper, researcher, or health actor connected to the region, get in touch, the data will be open (ODbL) and available to all, including ALIGN.
You’re right to highlight that good facility data is core to county-led, evidence-informed decisions that lead to more effective, efficient health product prioritization and introduction.
In Senegal—as in each of the three pathfinder countries in the ALIGN Consortium—one of our priorities is to map what solid, interoperable pieces already exist and make sure ALIGN builds on them instead of creating anything duplicative. Such collaboration and aggregation are core to our theory of change; we see Digital Public Goods as core enabling infrastructure rather than parallel systems. By building on existing DPGs like open facility registries and OSM-linked datasets, governments can move faster, avoid duplication, and ground prioritization decisions in shared, verifiable information. Our intention is to use and strengthen these open systems wherever they already exist, not replace them.
It would be great to connect and learn more about the work you are doing and discuss how we can collaborate. You can reach out here: align@duke.edu (and we'll connect you with the appropriate team members!)
On your questions:
Engaging the data commons and CHWs: We see civil society, mappers, and front-line health workers, including CHWs as active contributors to a living data layer, especially for last-mile visibility where official systems lag. This is essential to better evidence and more transparent decision-making. Our plan is to make the data we collect and aggregate as open as possible; contributing to the data commons is a natural way to do so. As for CHWs, stakeholder engagement is a core part of ALIGN. While our initial focus is on decision-makers, incorporating frontline perspectives is essential to ensure that data and insights reflect real-world service delivery. Thank you for highlighting this.
Including open-source and volunteer networks in “whole-of-market” engagement: When we talk about the “market,” (see our recent post about it!) we’re using the term broadly: not just commercial actors but anyone beyond government who shapes whether, which, and how health products reach people. That naturally includes opensource communities, volunteers, local universities, and civil society networks who maintain shared data and infrastructure. These groups bring transparency and ground-truthing that traditional actors often miss. We plan to engage them directly through active dissemination in relevant social networks, simple intake forms where communities can flag datasets, tools, or products that should be incorporated, and targeted outreach through existing stakeholder groups. The aim is to make participation easy and predictable so that the open ecosystem can inform our work and benefit from it.
Thank you for this post. The four pillars align closely with challenges we see at healthsites.io, a Digital Public Good maintaining an open, community-validated health facility registry built on OpenStreetMap.
The data pillar resonates most sharply. Fragmented, missing, or inaccurate facility data is often the invisible constraint sitting upstream of every prioritisation and delivery decision described here. You can't plan portfolio-based innovation introduction if you don't know where facilities are, what services they offer, or whether that information is current and trusted.
In Senegal, we’re addressing this through UUID-based linkage across the master facility list, ANSD boundaries, and DHIS2:
https://zenodo.org/records/10443334
With ENDA Santé as an ALIGN partner and Senegal a focus country, there’s a clear opportunity to build on existing open, interoperable infrastructure, rather than duplicating it.
Key questions:
→ How does the theory of change incorporate existing Digital Public Goods?
→ How will ALIGN engage the data commons (OSM, civil society, CHWs) as active participants?
→ What does “whole-of-market” mean when it includes open-source and volunteer networks?
We're inviting support for our next campaign to map the medical region of Tambacounda. If you’re a mapper, researcher, or health actor connected to the region, get in touch, the data will be open (ODbL) and available to all, including ALIGN.
https://healthsites.io/map?country=Senegal
Hi Mark -- thank you for getting in touch!
You’re right to highlight that good facility data is core to county-led, evidence-informed decisions that lead to more effective, efficient health product prioritization and introduction.
In Senegal—as in each of the three pathfinder countries in the ALIGN Consortium—one of our priorities is to map what solid, interoperable pieces already exist and make sure ALIGN builds on them instead of creating anything duplicative. Such collaboration and aggregation are core to our theory of change; we see Digital Public Goods as core enabling infrastructure rather than parallel systems. By building on existing DPGs like open facility registries and OSM-linked datasets, governments can move faster, avoid duplication, and ground prioritization decisions in shared, verifiable information. Our intention is to use and strengthen these open systems wherever they already exist, not replace them.
It would be great to connect and learn more about the work you are doing and discuss how we can collaborate. You can reach out here: align@duke.edu (and we'll connect you with the appropriate team members!)
On your questions:
Engaging the data commons and CHWs: We see civil society, mappers, and front-line health workers, including CHWs as active contributors to a living data layer, especially for last-mile visibility where official systems lag. This is essential to better evidence and more transparent decision-making. Our plan is to make the data we collect and aggregate as open as possible; contributing to the data commons is a natural way to do so. As for CHWs, stakeholder engagement is a core part of ALIGN. While our initial focus is on decision-makers, incorporating frontline perspectives is essential to ensure that data and insights reflect real-world service delivery. Thank you for highlighting this.
Including open-source and volunteer networks in “whole-of-market” engagement: When we talk about the “market,” (see our recent post about it!) we’re using the term broadly: not just commercial actors but anyone beyond government who shapes whether, which, and how health products reach people. That naturally includes opensource communities, volunteers, local universities, and civil society networks who maintain shared data and infrastructure. These groups bring transparency and ground-truthing that traditional actors often miss. We plan to engage them directly through active dissemination in relevant social networks, simple intake forms where communities can flag datasets, tools, or products that should be incorporated, and targeted outreach through existing stakeholder groups. The aim is to make participation easy and predictable so that the open ecosystem can inform our work and benefit from it.