Our Projects
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Year 2021
Country Kenya
Client
Systems and Analytics Support to Digital Transformation for Food Systems Data Sharing and Visualization
Information Management PROJECTS
A key component of Kenya’s Agriculture Sector Transformation and Growth Strategy (ASTGS) is to leverage digital technologies in agriculture to increase small-scale farmer incomes, improve year-round food availability, and boost household food resilience for the most vulnerable. To this end, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the National Drought Management Authority (NDMA) are working to digitize their seasonal assessment resources, which are used to track elements of food stocks, production, trade, and consumption, among others. Kimetrica is improving and strengthening the use and function of WFP’s existing seasonal assessment resources by creating custom user-friendly dashboards and data warehousing solutions. The proof of concept and corresponding report will determine next steps towards building a sustainable approach for WFP to capture, manage, and improve the value of the seasonal assessment resources over time for the Kimetrica Food Security Steering Group (KFSSG) member organizations.
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Year 2021-2022
Country Kenya Tanzania Uganda
Client
Modeling and Simulation PROJECTS
The Feed the Future East Africa Market Systems (EAMS) Task Order
Information Management PROJECTS
USAID's Regional Integration and Stronger Economics (RISE) indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) mechanism is designed to increase cross-border trade in select product value chains and enhance regional economic integration to overcome barriers to trade and strengthen the region’s ability to absorb, adapt, recover and transform in times of shocks and stress. Under this IDIQ, Palladium (Kimetrica’s prime) is carrying out the East Africa Market Systems (EAMS) Task Order (TO) to achieve an increase in intra-regional trade, create new cross-border partnerships or market linkages, add investment for regional trade finance and commercialize new agricultural technologies. As a subcontractor to Palladium on the EAMS TO, Kimetrica is developing data-driven maps and visualizations to support trade flow analysis in the region, as well as developing resilience monitoring tools that build on existing technologies using state-of-the-art data mining and machine-learning techniques. To further define surveillance needs, Kimetrica will engage with stakeholders and collaborate with institutional partners in the region.
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Year 2020-2027
Country Burundi DRC Ethiopia Kenya Rwanda Somalia South Sudan Sudan Tanzania Uganda
Client
USAID/Kenya and East Africa (KEA) - Evaluations, Assessments and Analyses (EAA) Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) Contract
Research and Evaluation PROJECTS
USAID’s Kenya and East Africa (KEA) Mission is leading critical efforts to promote learning through evaluation, performance monitoring, knowledge management, and research throughout the region. USAID/KEA’s Evaluations, Assessments and Analyses (EAA) IDIQ enables the procurement of regular evaluations, assessments, and analyses for learning to improve effectiveness and accountability of activities in the region. As a holder of the seven-year IDIQ, Kimetrica is positioned to design and implement both quantitative and qualitative research, lead on knowledge management, and develop and deliver evaluation and assessment training to as many as 11 USAID Missions in the region, as well as to USAID implementing partners, and local institutions. Kimetrica’s EAA IDIQ partners include Social Impact, Forcier Consulting, and TANGO International.
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Year 2019-2026
Country Angola Burkina Faso Burundi Cameroon CAR Chad Djibouti DRC El Salvador Ethiopia Guatamala Haiti Honduras Kenya Lesotho Liberia Madagascar Malawi Mali Mauritania Mozambique Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Rwanda Senegal Sierra Leonne Somalia South Sudan Sudan Tajikistan Tanzania Uganda USA Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe
Client
Modeling and Simulation PROJECTS
Research and Evaluation PROJECTS
FEWS NET Pillar 2: Management of a FEWS NET Learning and Data Hub
Information Management PROJECTS
USAID’s Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) project is the agency’s longest-running activity. Created in 1985 by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the US Department of State after devastating famines in East and West Africa, FEWS NET provides near real-time analysis on famine threats in more than 38 highly-vulnerable countries around the world.
The FEWS NET Learning and Data Hub (“the Hub”) provides a mission-critical, web-based Information Management System (IMS) to enhance the ability of analysts to provide evidence-based decision-making about humanitarian assistance. It is designed to serve FEWS NET team members and their partners with the technology platforms and strategies necessary to manage, analyze, and disseminate FEWS NET data, information, and other knowledge products.
The Hub’s Data Management Platform (DMP) workstream consists of a set of activities that are designed to manage, maintain, and improve the FEWS NET DMP, including the FEWS NET Data Warehouse (FDW) and the FEWS NET Data Explorer (FDE), as well as other digital applications needed to store, manipulate and disseminate the core FEWS NET databases. It also includes activities related to the design and management of new datasets, visualizations, and analytical tools, as requested by USAID.
The FEWS NET website platform provides monthly reports and maps detailing current and projected levels of food insecurity; alerts on emerging or likely crises; and specialized reports on weather and climate, markets and trade, agricultural production, livelihoods, nutrition, and food assistance. The Hub team is responsible for managing, maintaining and improving the FEWS NET website platform, while the implementer of the EW team is responsible for the primary early warning analysis and reporting under FEWS NET, as well as for uploading its critical information products directly onto the website.
The Hub’s mandate for Knowledge and Learning is to make FEWS NET food security-related data and knowledge products more accessible to FEWS NET team members, as well as to users and for uses outside of the FEWS NET team.
Through our management of the FEWS NET Data Hub, Kimetrica is helping USAID to sustainably prevent food insecurity and famine by providing timely, relevant, and evidence-based analysis on the causes, levels, and consequences of food insecurity. In turn, the analysis drives decision-making at international, national, and local levels.
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"[Kimetrica's] work with the Famine Early Warning Systems Network is truly inspiring. Because of [Kimetrica's] devotion to this topic, USAID is more effectively able to identify food insecurity throughout the world and save lives."
~ The Honorable Mr. Joe Neguse, US Congressman, 2nd District of Colorado
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Year 2019-2021
Country Angola Botswana Burundi Ethiopia Kenya Lesotho Madagascar Malawi Mozambique Namibia Rwanda Somalia South Africa South Sudan Swaziland Tanzania Uganda Zambia Zimbabwe
Client
UNICEF Improved Level of Disaggregation and Quality of Nutrition Survey and Rapid Assessment of Data Through the use of Spatial Sampling Methods and Improved Data Analysis Long Term Agreement (LTA)
Research and Evaluation PROJECTS
Nutrition status across East and Southern Africa is typically monitored through a national level, representative population survey at most every four to five years, which means that, often, up-to-date information for many countries is lacking. The objective of this two-year Long Term Agreement (LTA) is to increase the uptake of innovative spatial survey methods for all 21 countries in the East and Southern African region to more closely monitor progress toward achieving national, regional and global nutrition targets. Specifically, the LTA facilitates the availability of technical expertise in spatial surveying methods, data analysis techniques, and mapping of results to facilitate provision of in-country technical support for surveys and assessments. Kimetrica offers area-based sampling methods to estimate and map nutritional status data at both regional and national levels.
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Year 2019-2021
Country Kenya
Client
USAID’s Partnership for Resilience and Economic Growth (PREG), Northern Kenya: Impact Evaluation Recurrent Monitoring System (RMS)
Research and Evaluation PROJECTS
USAID's Partnership for Resilience and Economic Growth (PREG) brings together humanitarian and development partners to build resilience among Kenya’s vulnerable pastoralist communities in the country’s arid and semi-arid lands (ASAL). PREG focuses on nine vulnerable and high-risk areas and works with the Government of Kenya at both national and county levels to address underlying community vulnerabilities. PREG’s goal is to assess how the range of USAID-supported interventions contributes to both community and household resilience capacities. In 2019, to promote learning and adapting within the activity, Kimetrica in collaboration with TANGO International, began conducting quarterly, recurring monitoring system (RMS) surveys of 800 households (a subset of the 2,700 households Kimetrica surveyed during the activity’s baseline evaluation in 2018). Each quarter, the RMS alternates between conducting 30 key informant interviews and eight focus group discussions to avoid respondent fatigue. From September 2019 to June 2020, Kimetrica successfully conducted four rounds of RMS. Due to COVID-19, data collection was put on hold in mid-2020 but another round of RMS is anticipated to begin in mid-2021. This near real-time data allows USAID to understand how households’ resilience capacity affects their recovery from shocks.
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Year 2018
Country Kenya
Client
Partnership for Resilience and Economic Growth (PREG): Baseline/Endline Data Collection
Large-Scale Surveys PROJECTS
USAID’s Partnership for Resilience and Economic Growth (PREG) brings together humanitarian and development partners to build resilience among Kenya’s vulnerable pastoralist communities in the country’s arid and semi-arid lands (ASAL). The partnership focuses on nine vulnerable and high-risk areas and works with the Government of Kenya at both national and county levels to address underlying community vulnerabilities. Kimetrica, in collaboration with its partner, TANGO International, conducted a mixed-method study to assess how the range of USAID-supported interventions contributes to both community and household resilience capacities, and how they improve household responses to shocks and well-being outcomes. Quantitative data collection consisted of a large-scale (2,700 households), representative baseline survey with questions that reflected dietary diversity and food availability, and included an anthropometric component to assess rates of malnutrition, which influence household vulnerability. Simultaneously, qualitative data were collected in the same areas through 32 focus group discussions and 49 key informant interviews to triangulate and understand gender differences. The results of this study served as an Endline for the Resilience and Economic Growth in the Arid Lands (REGAL) impact evaluation and as a Baseline Resilience impact evaluation for the larger PREG Northern Kenya intervention areas. Kimetrica’s work included CAPI-programming (Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing), using CSPro (Census and Survey Processing System), and all aspects of field data collection, from recruitment to training to survey implementation and data capture.
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Year 2017-2019
Country Kenya
Client
Methods for Extremely Rapid Observation of Nutritional Status (MERON)
Modeling and Simulation PROJECTS
Traditional methods for quantifying malnutrition in children involve physical handling of subjects, can be time-consuming and are susceptible to inaccuracy because they require enumerators to interpret the value. Kimetrica has developed an application called Methods for Extremely Rapid Observation of Nutritional Status (MERON) that allows for a non-invasive, time efficient, and tamper-proof approach to assessing the malnutrition status of an individual by using a facial recognition and processing algorithm.
Recently, through a United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) innovation grant, Kimetrica achieved proof of concept with MERON for children and a preliminary classification accuracy level of 60 percent, using 3,500 images of children under-five (6-59 months), collected alongside UNICEF's Standardized Monitoring and Assessment of Relief and Transitions (SMART) survey in Kenya.
MERON's next step for product development is a significant increase in its accuracy for malnutrition detection in children under-five from 60 percent to over 90 percent, which will be achieved through collecting additional image data. Doing so requires the collection of 5,000-15,000 more usable images in tandem with SMART surveys or other nutritional assessments for calibration.
Once MERON achieves high-quality classification ability, it will offer the following benefits:
1. An increase in the accuracy of collecting data on malnutrition.
2. A cost reduction related to the training of enumerators.
3. Use of inconspicuous measurement tools.
4. A less invasive method to measure malnutrition. (In some cultures parents are sensitive to physical handling of their children.)These benefits could, in turn, result in a number of important outcomes for the diagnosis and treatment of malnutrition in children under five. These include:
1. More appropriate distribution of funding and scarce resources based on accurate measurements.
2. Savings in resources (resources used for training enumerators to take accurate weight for height measurements; transportation of bulky equipment and opportunity cost for communities participating in surveys).
3. Easier data collection in hard to access, high risk or conflict areas, and areas where physical handling of children is culturally not acceptable.MERON was presented at the Artificial Intelligence for Good Global Summit held in Geneva in May 2018 (Watch the interview) and has been featured in the Smithsonian, New Scientist, Daily Mail and Deutsche Welle.
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Year 2014-2019
Country Ethiopia Kenya Somalia South Sudan
Client
Food Security and Humanitarian Monitoring
Research and Evaluation PROJECTS
Kimetrica conducts food security monitoring in some of the world’s most vulnerable locations. Working in highly insecure environments, Kimetrica’s field-based researchers and data collection teams gathered primary data from panel surveys of households, markets and health centers. Using tablets and satellite telephones, Kimetrica provided decision-makers with near real-time information on humanitarian conditions, food availability, and population movements. Kimetrica's cutting-edge methodological approach in collecting detailed information allowed decision-makers to better understand humanitarian conditions and design programs to best respond to immediate needs.
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Year 2011-2019
Country Angola Burkina Faso Burundi DRC Ethiopia Kenya Lesotho Malawi Mali Mauritania Mozambique Niger Nigeria Rwanda Senegal Sierra Leonne Somalia South Sudan Sudan Tanzania Uganda Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe
Client
Modeling and Simulation PROJECTS
Research and Evaluation PROJECTS
FEWS NET Technology Support Contract
Information Management PROJECTS
The USAID-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) -- reporting on conditions in 36 countries from 22 field offices around the world -- traditionally relied on its own personnel based in food insecure countries and official in-country partners, to collect and assess information and data needed to identify and monitor levels of food security in vulnerable populations. The data collection method depends on proximity to, or direct contact with, the hungry populations from whom the information and data are gleaned. The scope and the amount of data that FEWS NET can theoretically collect is therefore constrained by the resources available from its FEWS NET Implementation Team (FIT) members (USAID, NASA, NOAA, USDA, USGS, and a private-sector contractor) and other official and unofficial partners.
The FEWS NET Technology Support Contract (TSC) assisted USAID’s FEWS NET in identifying and implementing new technologies to enhance team collaboration and to broaden data collection, analysis and dissemination methods. The project supported the FIT to enhance intra-team early warning collaboration, analysis, and dissemination capabilities, and to expand across the board capacity to gather new and greater quantities of food security information and data through the application and use of new early warning information technologies.