Years ago I supported a NGO and spent time with women in southern Ethiopia to help facilitate a community based drought early warning system. During one visit I shared graphs which depicted women’s perceptions of change in their community. Such as the well being of their children, livestock, and access to water. As I shared a graph on a dusty piece of paper, a pastoralist woman smiled, paused and looked at me and said…
“this… is a picture of the pasture…over there”.
This was neither my first meeting nor my first trip for this project. We had “created a survey”, “collected data” and structured the data to make some “graphs”
While for many other decision makers the graphs may have proved somewhat helpful to track the trends of health, water, sanitation and livelihoods changes over time; alerting them of an impending drought. But for this one woman, who represented the focus of people we aimed to support — we were missing the mark.
I had a moment of blistering silence in me, one that reshaped my world of data information decision making. There is a disconnect we often have with people and data visualizations
This reflects the ongoing need to listen, engage directly and better understand what practitioners (and affected communities) need with humanitarian information and data…. first. And be willing to bend the touted truths and cultural norms of what we’ve been taught is data and the visualizations that impart meaning.
We hear a lot about why data is important, why its important to share information, and all the cool tools that are helping to make it happen. But we hear much much less about how it’s not working for humanitarians in smaller agencies, civil societies and government offices.
The answers and solutions are not easy and iterations will be necessary.
But if you have ever had that experience of blistering silence when you’ve clearly missed the mark, that’s an incredibly humble and tough moment. I hope that experience, (or the one you will have in the future) will drive you as it drives me to advocate for people and purpose first before data, process, and cool tools – especially in these types of settings
Food for thought
hmmthoughts 