Standardizing the understanding of African Health Supply Chains

Strategizing Data Collection and Extraction

What do you do when partners come to you to define a harmonized, continent-wide data collection framework?

This inaugural piece in our Data Portals Blog Series focuses on the vital "Extract" stage of data analytics projects. Our case study assesses the capacity, performance, and resilience of African health supply chains and introduces a shared framework that enables comparable insights across 55 African countries for the first time.

Public health supply chains across Africa face persistent challenges, including fragmented systems, infrastructure constraints, limited digitalization, and insufficient financing. Recognizing these critical gaps, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) and UNICEF partnered under their Joint Action Plan (JAP) 2024–2027 to develop a digital, continental platform to enhance supply chain visibility and resilience.

To support this ambitious vision, Ona provided vital technical and advisory expertise to strategize the data collection process, define a standard framework for key indicators, and build a system that champions data ownership and rigorous assessment.

Defining the Framework: From Ambiguity to Actionable Metrics

The impulse to seek expertise for the initiative came from the Africa CDC, which understood the need to elevate health supply chains' visibility as a core pillar of health systems strengthening, but had yet to define a clear methodology to assess the specific scope of issues across the continent. The vision articulated was one of integrated, resilient, and responsive health supply chains that ensure equitable access to quality health commodities in Africa.

The objectives were: to come up with a fast and practical way to systematically assess continental supply chain capabilities; to find gaps for actionable policy and investment insights; and to promote continuous learning through collaboration.

Our (Ona's) first major role was advisory, guiding the development of a standardized, comparable framework to measure continental realities.

After an extensive desk review of over 90 strategic and technical documents spanning 32 countries, we proposed a refined list of 42 data points for the assessment framework designed to be accessible for designated country officials to self-report and complement with documentary evidence on an annual basis.

These data points are structured across 12 strategic domains, which were categorized further into two main areas:

• Core Processes: The fundamental operational processes that move health commodities, such as planning and coordination, forecasting, procurement, warehousing, distribution, and waste management.
• Enabling environment: The foundational systems required for effective execution of core processes, including human resources, technology, finance, emergency response, local manufacturing, and quality assurance.

While this framework drew inspiration from existing global digital health and supply chain standards and concepts, it was uniquely adapted and tied together by Ona to fit the specific operational realities and goals of the Africa CDC.

Furthermore, the assessment approach focused on "tracer commodities" linked to priority pathogens identified via continental surveillance. This targeted approach avoided the impracticality of assessing all health commodities. Pathogens were selected based on the criteria of historical burden, epidemic potential, availability of proven interventions, supply chain complexity (vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics), and relevance to continental health security.

Prioritizing Data Quality and Country Ownership

From the project inception, critical requirements for this continent-wide data extraction were ensuring data quality and accountability while securing partners' buy-in. To that end, and following the approval of the assessment framework, a four-step data validation and approval process was established.

The validation process ensures data accuracy through four distinct review gates:

1. Country self-assessment provides ground truth,
2. National leadership review catches errors,
3. UNICEF validation identifies inconsistencies, and
4. Africa CDC verification ensures continental comparability.

Initially, standard data collection tools like Ona Data were considered, but it quickly became apparent that a more rigorous process was required to manage approvals and ensure that countries retained ultimate control over their sensitive information.

To solve this, we implemented Directus for the core data collection and case management platform. That became the foundation for the Africa Supply Chain Assessment Registry (ASCAR), which is directly hosted within Africa CDC's premises.

Directus allows building sophisticated, multi-step review workflows that require strict pre-approvals before any data can be published to public-facing dashboards. Crucially, this guarantees that only the specific country representative has the supremacy to edit their own data, embedding country ownership directly into the technical framework and preventing unauthorized publication.

Translating Qualitative Data into Measurable Scores

Using dbt (data build tool), we modeled the raw data from Directus, converting the responses from the standardized questionnaires into actionable, aggregated percentage scores for each country and category. The 42 data points were structured on a measuring scale of 1 to 4 (ranging from "Needs Significant Improvement" to "Optimized"). This scoring methodology ensures that the collected data provides a reliable baseline for cross-country comparison, highlighting both regional strengths and critical systemic gaps. To ensure the assessment was evidence-based, the platform was configured to allow countries to upload verifying documents—such as standard operating procedures (SOPs) and procurement plans—to back up their questionnaire responses.

Akuko serves as the final front-end stage of this data pipeline. Once the data is collected via Directus, stored on a PostgreSQL database, and modeled using dbt, the processed information is fed directly into Akuko to generate public-facing data visualizations and dashboards. Akuko is an internally developed data storytelling and data publishing platform created by Ona. It provides a no-code approach to building beautiful, interactive, and dynamic dashboards that would typically require a front-end developer.

The result: from continental snapshots to trends

The Continental Supply Chain Snapshot is live with seven pilot countries across eastern, western, southern, and northern African regions chosen to represent diverse contexts, having already completed or near-completed the assessment in 2025. The platform is already establishing a continental baseline for the broader assessment while revealing significant heterogeneity in countries' supply chain maturity.

Categorical analysis shows intriguing patterns that challenge conventional assumptions about supply chain development trajectories and suggests that while many African countries possess functional supply chains capable of routine operations, they require strategic strengthening to meet modern health security demands.

The sample analyzed showcases a continent that has built substantial supply chain infrastructure and capability, demonstrated by strong performance in quality assurance (92.9%), coordination (71.4%), and core logistics functions. Yet, gaps in finance (42.0%), human resources (42.9%), emergency preparedness (51.8%), despite recent pandemic experiences, and technology (54.5%) threaten to undermine these achievements.

The baseline averaging at 54% initial maturity score, over multiple assessment cycles, will allow stakeholders to track longitudinal trends, benchmark performance, and make smarter, evidence-based investments in health supply chains across Africa.

The next planned step for analysis is to use artificial intelligence, like machine learning and Natural Language Processing, to perform an additional qualitative analysis on the supporting documentation that the countries provided to identify common themes like challenges, priorities, and peer innovations.

This initiative's greatest contribution may be the establishment of a shared continental measurement framework. By creating a common set of indicators, definitions, and review processes, the snapshot introduces a consistent language for discussing supply chain performance across very different contexts.

Looking Ahead

By strategically defining indicators and prioritizing a technology stack that respects country data sovereignty, Ona helped lay a robust foundation. Navigating the complexities of framework definition and multi-level organizational buy-in was the most demanding and impactful phase of the project.

The resulting data collection framework and snapshot have the potential of being a vital instrument in strengthening health supply chains across the continent. By focusing on both quantitative metrics and qualitative documentation, it can provide actionable insights that inform policy development, operational improvements, and investment priorities.

Looking ahead, the priority is not only to improve scores but to strengthen the system that produces and uses this information. When embedded into planning, review, and resource allocation processes, the Continental Supply Chain Snapshot can support more evidence-based dialogue between countries, the Africa CDC, and partners.

With sustained collaboration and strategic investments, this initiative can evolve into a trusted continental public good supporting smarter investments and more reliable access to quality health commodities for all African populations.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of our OI Data Portals Series, where we will dive into the Transformation and Load stages, exploring how we utilized dbt and Akuko to build other dynamic, public-facing data portals.