BY Cheikh TRAORE
Group photo with students of The Gambia College
Banjul – March 5th, 2020
ReSAKSS presented the 2020 edition of its Data Challenge in the Gambia. The event took place at the Gambia College in Birkama – 36 Km from Banjul. The Gambia College provides training on four programs including Agriculture, Education, Nursing and Public Health.
Prior to the opening of the ceremony, the ReSAKSS Team was introduced to the College Principal - Mr. Diallo Boubacar- by Mr. Francis Mendy, Principal Planning Officer at the Minister of Agriculture of the Gambia and Head of the Gambia’s eAtlas team. Mr. Diallo, highlighted the importance of the ReSAKSS program which mission is to give access to reliable data provided by local (African) researchers, and to contribute to what UNECA refers to as The African data revolution.
After meeting with Mr. Diallo Boubacar, the ReSAKSS team moved on to present the ReSAKSS Data Challenge to the Gambia College students. The session began with welcome remarks by Mr. Francis Mendy, followed by presentations by the IFPRI-ReSAKSS team[1] on the ReSAKSS programme, the Data Challenge, the ReSAKSS and eAtlas online platforms, as well as the contest’s website.
Ibrahima Y. Bodian’s (Student at the Gambia College) intervention
An interactive questions and answers session with the students and some video interviews followed the presentations. Commenting on how ReSAKSS-eAtlas data could enhance their analytical skills as students, Abdourahmane Ba from the School of Public Health explained: “the field I am studying- Public health - has a lot to do with data. And ReSAKSS eAtlas can help me find reliable data for my research studies.” Hawa Dansou, student from the same college, supported Abdourahmane’s opinion about the ReSAKSS-eAtlas platform, on the fact that it could greatly help them build evidence-based outputs.
Mr. Francis Mendy, Chair of the Gambia’s eAtlas team, closed the event with this recommendation to the students of the Gambia College: “We need not only to collect primary data when we are drafting our dissertation, we also may need secondary data available for instance on the eAtlas platform. I really encourage all of you to use these platforms because the data that is featured in them that are related to The Gambia has been validated and is ready to be used by the public.”
View the album of the event
[1] Dr. Racine Ly, Research Coordinator of the ReSAKSS programme, Cheikh Tourad Traore, Communications Associate, Babacar Ceesay, Website and Database Developer, Mohamed Ahid, Website and Database Developer, Baye Demba Diack, Website and Database Developer, respectively delivered the 5 presentations.