How non-profits and governments use data to drive real system change

Following international aid declines, philanthropy is searching for innovative ways to support non-profits and Global South governments in delivering service solutions where outcomes data plays a central role.

Achieving data-driven innovation requires more than gathering the right facts – it must generate change in daily routines. The global philanthropy sector is now waking up this idea.

Below are three key lessons from non-profits that have successfully deployed data in their work in the Global South, and seen real progression in their goals of driving meaningful system change.

If government staff feel that something bad will happen should their data reveal underperformance, they are unlikely to gather it. Philanthropy can play a catalytic role by supporting projects that combine data usage with fresh incentives and support.

Generation India works with national and state-government entities in a public-private partnership structure funded equally by both. Previously, training providers in government-funded programmes were reimbursed largely on training and certification; those two milestones accounted for more than 70% of the government payment per learner. While the remainder of government payment per learner did include some outcomes metrics, such as job placement and three-month job retention, the process for proving these outcome metrics was cumbersome and lengthy, discouraging efforts in this direction. Further, since training providers had learned how to break even on the 70% of input-related payments, they were willing to forgo additional outcome-related payments. The combined result was a job placement rate of less than 25%.

To turn things around, the partnership of Generation India and government entities reduced the input payments linked to programme completion to 56% and increased outcomes compensation to 44%. In parallel, it introduced new payment milestones based on job placement within three months of programme completion and job retention at three- and six-months after the initial placement, both of which are verified by third parties.

There’s a similar playbook at the Brazilian Collaborative Leadership alliance, a partnership between the Lemann Foundation and federal, state and municipal governments, which reaches 70% of first and second graders in the country. To advance literacy, Lemann Foundation funds teacher training and provides better-quality textbooks for students at all participating schools. The state commits to joining the national literacy programme, which includes instruction materials and assessments of second grade students. The state also recognizes schools with the best results by granting their principals cash awards with an average value of $10,000. While the recognized schools receive 60-75% of the cash award immediately, they can only access the remaining 25-40% if they help another school in their community improve its literacy outcomes, which spurs an additional layer of support. Lastly, 2-5% of state tax revenue is given to municipality governments based on their performance against targets, with each free to decide how it uses these funds.

Sometimes existing data is simply insufficient to inform action. In such cases, philanthropy can help non-profits and governments develop new data streams.

In 2017, Malawi’s Ministry of Health wanted to create a single source of truth for improving healthcare outcomes in rural areas, one that would also serve as a decision support tool at point of care. And so iCHIS (the integrated community health information system) was born. Community health workers were trained by the non-profit Last Mile Health on how to use the new digital data system and how to capture information from daily visits on a tablet and upload it to iCHIS. To date, nearly 3,200 community health workers use the system, with over 687,000 people registered. iCHIS has already begun to improve the way care is delivered. For example, community health workers now receive real-time reminders about which children are overdue for vaccinations, which is boosting immunization coverage in rural communities.

In Brazil, second graders take a fluency test twice a year to help teachers and schools better understand the trajectory of student literacy performance. Teachers record students in class reading about a minute of text into a phone. The scores are then shared with teachers. As it turns out, the fluency test is a strong predictor of performance on the national literacy assessment. Over three million tests are now administered per year by the Bem Comum Association, supported by Lemann Foundation and other BLC funders. In 2024, 3.5 million children across 18 states took the literacy assessment, and 69% reached adequate reading levels, up from 49% in 2022.

Data-driven insights, like the information on the dashboard of a vehicle, do little good if users don’t routinely use them to navigate and stay on course.

For Last Mile Health and the Ministry of Health in Malawi, the first step has been ensuring that those nearly 3,200 community health workers are able to collect the data correctly. To do so, they provide training for basic tasks such as how to turn on the tablet, check whether Wi-Fi is working, and ensure the data is recorded and uploaded. This enables the Ministry of Health and its partners to use the iCHIS system to guide vital daily decisions. One result: mosquito nets can now be precisely allocated by household, with national identity cards matched to the scan of the distributed mosquito net to verify that people received them.

Generation India engages weekly with training providers on two types of dashboards – one focused on instruction and the other focused on operations and employment. The instruction dashboard shows weekly skills mastery assessments for each cohort, comparing performance against previous weeks and identifying learners who need an intervention. The operations and employment tracker shows data for key metrics such as attendance, drop-outs, graduates and job placement at three and six months. Guided by these two dashboards, training providers and Generation India constantly course correct to improve outcomes. Along with the revised reward algorithm described earlier, training providers have seen employment rates increase from 25% to more than 80% within months.

Philanthropy knows that good data is critical to finding out what works. But achieving true system change requires more than just quality data. It happens when philanthropy aligns with governments and non-profits to generate a virtuous cycle of data-driven change based on the three principles outlined here.