IDinsight launches DataDelta to equip government and social sector leaders with the highest-quality survey data

August 9th, 2023:  IDinsight announces DataDelta, which equips government and social sector leaders with the highest quality survey data to shape policies and programs that impact people’s lives. Previously called Data on Demand, DataDelta is expanding in India, the Philippines, and Kenya, with a growing portfolio of projects supporting government and social sector partners. 

IDinsight’s DataDelta team tailors its projects to partners’ needs, resulting in data that is decision-relevant, actionable, and delivered when it’s needed. The DataDelta team is committed to upholding the integrity of each respondent’s voice and has created systems to maintain data quality even at a large scale. This data collection approach has three pillars: expertly trained teams that continually refine data collection in real-time based on a robust system of data quality checks; custom-built survey management software called SurveyStream that helps collect and quickly process large amounts of data; and innovative sampling approaches to ensure data is representative. Crucially, these innovations all save time––consistently producing meaningful insights with large-scale, timely influence.

DataDelta was developed over the last six years, first in India, where it demonstrated that its approach can help overcome many conventional barriers to data use by public officials. For example, in 2020, the team conducted seven rapid phone survey rounds during the first wave of COVID-19 to inform the Government of India’s COVID-19 response strategy. The time from request to results delivery for the first round was just 13 days, representing 80 million of India’s poorest residents. Now, the DataDelta India team is focused on multiple large-scale surveys. Working with a state government in southern India, the DataDelta team is collecting data from ~ 60,000 households on maternal health, child nutrition, and education indicators to inform resource allocation and geographical prioritization, and other government priorities. It is one of the largest state-level panel surveys in India. 

With support from Co-Impact, the team has expanded globally, building its capacity to serve partners outside of India. Currently, the DataDelta Philippines team is working with the Department of Health on a nationally representative survey – the Health Promotion and Literacy Longitudinal Study – across all 17 regions of the Philippines. In Kenya, the team is working with Helen Keller International to conduct a representative survey and improve the quality of data they use to track coverage of their Vitamin A supplementation campaigns. We are currently exploring opportunities to work with other partners in Kenya. 

Across these geographies, DataDelta is informing social sector decisions with the highest quality survey data, and also working with partners to strengthen public sector data systems and deepen the capacity to use data for routine decision-making. 

For example, as part of the Aspirational Districts Program in India, the team is using DataDelta surveys and tools to diagnose and address gaps in data quality in administrative data in the health, nutrition, and education sectors in 45 districts. By improving their own data quality, districts will be more invested in and able to use the data to track progress on key social indicators and to inform changes to social programs. In the Philippines, in addition to collecting data for the Health Promotion and Literacy Survey, DoH has asked IDinsight to conduct capacity building for data use in several local government units. This will include raising awareness about the value of data for decision-making and impact in social service programs, setting standards for technical rigor and data quality, and considering resource requirements for ongoing data collection and use. In these ways, DataDelta aims to help institutionalize the use of high-quality, representative data in public sector decision-making. 

From the outset, DataDelta was designed to collect and analyze survey data in near-real time, including representative samples of diverse populations that can be hard to reach. Support from Co-Impact allows IDinsight to invest in the expansion of DataDelta in Africa, Southeast Asia and across India, and is also enabling continued technical innovations that allow DataDelta to optimize across cost, speed, and quality, and to foster sustained data use by public sector partners. Co-Impact’s support also enables IDinsight to integrate a gender and intersectionality lens across the project cycle to ensure that data collection and use within government and non-government partners help reveal and address inequities. 

Read more about DataDelta’s projects and team members here.