On the Road to Validate Data

 

Over several weeks, Chris, who is based in Accra, Ghana, has been traveling throughout four West African countries – Benin, Ghana, Mali and Togo -- to audit/check data quality, validity, reliability, timeliness, precision and integrity of trade flows across borders.  USAID ATP gathers information on intra-regional trade in livestock, onion and maize, from strategic markets and at main exit points. 

 

“We collect, validate, analyze, and use regional trade data year after year,”  Chris explains. “This calls for accuracy and credibility of data. Information on increases – or otherwise – in regional trade in specific food commodities is captured to inform relevant stakeholders, including project staff, on the trade status of regional agricultural food.”

The same process is used by Chris’ USAID E-ATP counterpart based in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, for rice, poultry, and millet/sorghum.

 

The work of data collection, collation and validation can be demanding and tiring. Travelling several hours by road within a country such as Mali, for instance, Chris meets with data collectors and project value chain country representatives (known as “focal points”) across the length and breadth of the country.  He spends long hours carefully combing file after file of data collected on each value chain, identifying instances of double counting, confirming accurate data, and discussing ways to improve the data collection systems.

 

Against this backdrop, as in other countries, data collectors in Mali have been carefully chosen, and properly trained in data collection. Their results show it. They work closely with project value chain country representatives drawn from such project regional organizational partners as Confédération des fédérations nationales de la filière bétail/viande des pays de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (COFENABVI), for livestock;  Observatoire régional de la filière oignon en Afrique de l’Ouest et du Centre (ORO/AOC), for onion/shallot; and Association des acheteurs des produits locaux de Sikasso (APLS), for maize. For effective data collection and coordination, two data collectors are positioned at each of the four data collection points in the country. Though this work may be tiring for some data collectors, that doesn’t appear to be the case in Mali. All the data collectors in the Zegoua, Kadiolo, Kayes and Diboli markets were enthusiastically involved in the data collection and validation exercise.

 

Kelly Moussa Aboubarine, a livestock data collector at Zegoua in the Sikasso district of Mali, is very excited about what he does. “I enjoy what I’m doing because I know that my work impacts a large number of people engaged in commercial activities throughout the region”, he said.

Data collectors in the field actually start the validation process by periodically making cross-checks.  

 

They then send their information to the project value chain representative for preliminary validation, and she forwards it to the M&E specialist.

  

Kelly’s daily data collection process is systematic. “I go strictly by a laid-down data collection 

 

procedure,” he confirmed.  He cited the steps he follows: observing the vehicle transporting the commodity arrive on site, at the market or main exit point; noting date of activity; noting registration number of vehicle; introducing himself to the truck driver and trader; finding out the quantity and variety of goods on board; physically counting the different sizes of livestock or variety of maize; 

 

inquiring as  to the price of goods per unit; and inquiring as to the origin and destination of goods.