R4D helps country leaders cut through digital noise to find what works — identifying and adapting practical, scalable tech and data solutions that drive real progress in health, education and nutrition.
The Challenge: Implementing Sustainable Digital Solutions
Change agents in low- and middle-income countries — government officials, civil society leaders and social innovators — are under increasing pressure to make fast, informed decisions that improve health outcomes, strengthen education systems, and reduce malnutrition. To do this, they need effective, scalable technology solutions that can manage complex data and rapidly convert them into actionable insights. Yet despite the growing number of technology implementers and innovations, leaders continue to face significant challenges deploying sustainable solutions because:
- Many digital systems are not designed with LMICs in mind and often fail to reflect the realities of local infrastructure, workforce capacity, or data governance priorities. As a result, even promising tools can fall short of national or subnational needs.
- Solutions are frequently cost-prohibitive or difficult to scale up, making it challenging for governments and local institutions to maintain or expand them without ongoing external support.
- New data systems frequently lack interoperability with existing platforms, both within and across sectors, making critical data difficult to access, integrate or analyze.
- Staff may lack the tools or training to adapt insights for broader use and strategic insight. Country leaders and change agents need clear, actionable insights but frequently receive information that’s dense, fragmented, or hard to interpret. And there are not sufficient resources to invest in building local capacity to do this.
- Policy and regulatory frameworks often lag behind technology, leaving gaps in data protection, governance, and cybersecurity, particularly as AI use expands.
- Some innovations are introduced without a deep understanding of country priorities or systems they’re meant to strengthen, resulting in poor uptake or limited impact.
- Long-term support needs — such as server hosting, maintenance, and software updates — are often overlooked or underestimated. Many solutions are deployed without realistic plans or resources for ongoing technical upkeep, leading to system failures, data loss or rapid obsolescence.
Our Approach: Supporting Country-Led Digital Transformations
Results for Development (R4D) works with country leaders and local change agents to catalyze sustainable digital transformation as a pathway to improving health, education and nutrition outcomes. At the country level, we collaborate with leaders to deeply understand the challenges they face — and to assess whether digital tools are the right solutions. Often, we help untangle complex problems to determine when technology is part of the answer, and when deeper issues, such as data quality, limited analytical capacity, or weak system ownership, must be addressed in parallel.
We also bring a systems lens to this work, helping leaders navigate the policy, regulatory, and governance environments that shape the success and sustainability of digital investments. This includes building awareness of critical system levers — from long-term maintenance and ownership to effective institutional alignment.
We use collaborative learning approaches to support cross-country co-creation, sharing, and use of data for evidence-based decision-making. And at the global and regional levels, we generate evidence about what works and support ecosystem partners in identifying scalable, context-appropriate innovations that respond to country priorities.
R4D’s approach is consistent with the Principles for Digital Development, a set of guidelines that promote inclusive and sustainable development approaches.
Specifically, we:
- Convene government leaders and other local change agents to map locally available capacity in the digital space, build consensus on digital and data system requirements and mobilize resources to plan scalable solutions.
- Connect country leaders with tech solution providers that can co-create or adapt existing solutions to match country requirements.
- Identify, profile, scale and sustain promising innovations — especially local innovations — that have the potential to solve challenges identified by country leaders.
- Work with country leaders and change agents to source, test and adapt new solutions and innovations, ensuring they are fit-for-purpose in each country context and have clear pathways to scale within existing systems.
- Evaluate new challenges and map them to innovations to understand which solutions are effective and scalable.
- Provide coaching and training to country leaders as they build effective pathways for scaling and sustaining tech innovations
- Support country leaders to review data and translate it into actionable evidence that can drive product and policy changes as well as funding decisions
- Share learning and evidence broadly with international funders and relevant actors within the country ecosystems to catalyze new iterations and innovations.
Our Work: Strengthening Digital Systems and Data Use
Digital tools and data play a vital and expanding role in helping countries to deliver services more effectively. Drawing on our deep expertise in health, education and nutrition, and decades of experience supporting countries to generate and implement actionable evidence, learning and innovation, we support the design, testing and application of digital and data tools. Our work supports countries to generate timely evidence for decision-making and catalyzes innovations that can help leaders drive better development outcomes.
Our Work at the Global Level
Providing leaders with evidence on education technology to improve learning
R4D leads the EdTech Hub – one of the largest research investments in education technology (EdTech) for LMICs. The Hub supports education leaders with the evidence they need to sort through the overwhelming array of EdTech options and implement effective solutions at scale. Using an integrated approach of research, innovation, and technical assistance, EdTech Hub produces vital evidence, guidance and tools, and builds partnerships between civil society, governments, and the private sector to amplify the impact of evidence-based approaches. The Hub provides tailored hands-on support in focus countries across Africa and Asia, and broader on-demand support through our Helpdesk service.
Ensuring AI leads to equitable learning outcomes for all
AI in global education could widen the learning divide — but it doesn’t have to. Through the EdTech Hub’s AI Observatory and Action Lab, made possible by support from UKAid, R4D is working to ensure equitable learning for all in the age of AI. The AI Observatory conducts horizon scans to better understand key system-wide challenges and opportunities for the use of AI in education. Then we explore these through Action Lab initiatives, designed to use real-world testing of AI in education, including policy frameworks, tools, and collaborative initiatives, to optimize education systems. This work helps equip education decision-makers to navigate the use of AI and work towards a future where AI helps to improve learning outcomes and address the global learning crisis for all.
Moving beyond the hype cycle to focus technology on country needs
The Frontier Technologies Hub is a global initiative funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) and implemented by R4D, DT Global, and Brink to explore how emerging technologies — such as AI, drones, and the Internet of Things (IoT) — can help low- and middle-income countries address pressing challenges. Since 2016, the Hub has supported over 70 frontier technology pilots across 33 countries, advancing innovations in health, education, agriculture, energy, WASH, and climate resilience through a demand-led, collaborative approach that centers country needs and engages local governments, civil society, entrepreneurs, and the private sector. Beyond implementation, the Hub builds capacity among FCDO staff and partners and generates practical insights on the effectiveness, scalability, and ethical use of frontier tech. Notable examples include supporting Nigeria to scale digital tools like ASSURE to detect misinformation and forecast vaccine uptake; piloting the use of computer vision for early forest fire detection; launching a multi-government UAV working group in Africa to address drone policy and regulation; and driving ecosystem engagement in Colombia and Ethiopia to align local priorities and foster sustainable impact.
Collaborative Learning to strengthen digital and data use capacity in immunization systems
R4D leads the Gavi-supported Linked Immunisation Action Network, including leading the Electronic Immunization Registry (EIR) workstream helping middle-income countries strengthen their immunization systems through the routine use of quality program data and digital information systems at national and subnational levels. R4D supports countries including Bhutan, Bolivia, Guyana, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam, and as they work to optimize EIRs, integrate them with broader health information systems, and ensure alignment with emerging Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI). Through curated virtual and in-person exchanges, R4D connects countries with innovative EIR models and fosters peer learning around the use of advanced analytics and artificial intelligence. This approach connects countries both with the existing ecosystem of partners (e.g., WHO, UNICEF, PAHO) and countries around the globe (e.g., Australia, Tanzania, Ghana, Peru) to promote sustainable system innovation and accelerate evidence-based improvements in immunization performance.
Envisioning possibilities for multisectoral nutrition data
R4D, in partnership with Johns Hopkins University (JHU) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), implement Data for Decisions in Nutrition (DataDENT) – a global initiative funded by the Gates Foundation that aims to improve the availability, quality, and use of nutrition data in low- and middle-income countries. DataDENT identifies and addresses critical gaps in nutrition data, advocates for stronger data systems, and assesses efforts to strengthen nutrition data capacity in countries. In consultation with global stakeholders and government partners in Ethiopia and Nigeria, R4D and JHU are developing recommendations and cost considerations for governments as they explore strengthening multi-sectoral nutrition data systems and tools for data use.
Our Work Directly Supporting Countries
Supporting Ghana’s education leaders with data for decision making
The R4D-led EdTech Hub is working closely with Ghana’s Ministry of Education to enhance the use of the Performance Management and Data Visualization (PMDV) dashboard to inform decision-making. The Hub conducted a case study on Ghana’s use of data dashboards to support education decisions — the first in a series documenting the Ministry’s journey toward more effective data use. Building on this strategic engagement, the Hub is now collaborating with the Ministry to identify implementation models that increase dashboard utilization and to explore how EdTech can help prevent climate-related disruptions to learning. Additionally, the Hub team in Ghana is partnering with the Ghana Education Service’s Special Education Division to design implementation research on the role of EdTech in identifying cognitive challenges, supporting plan development, and enabling remote supervision in public schools.
Supporting Ghana and Nigeria to make data driven decisions to improve primary health care
R4D is partnering with country leaders in Ghana and Nigeria to strengthen data-driven decision-making through the World Bank Global Financing Facility’s (GFF) Frequent Assessments and Systems Tools for Resilience (FASTR) initiative. FASTR equips countries with timely, rigorous and practical approaches to monitor and improve primary health care performance — particularly for women, children and adolescents — using open-source, user-friendly digital analytics tools. In Ghana, R4D is supporting the Ghana Health Service to implement rapid-cycle analytics that combine routine health data, health facility surveys, and learning labs to foster a culture of continuous learning and adaptive decision-making. In Nigeria, R4D is working with the Federal Ministry of Health to adapt FASTR methodologies to track quarterly progress across all 36 states on the national Health Sector Renewal Initiative. Across both countries, R4D brings deep expertise in coaching, mentoring, collaborative learning, and adaptive learning to help countries not only generate more timely data, but also translate that data into actionable insights for improved PHC performance. Throughout this work, R4D is documenting lessons learned and using those insights to strengthen and continuously improve the FASTR initiative.
Supporting Ghana to co-create and use digital and data tools in the health sector
Through the USAID-funded Health Systems Strengthening Accelerator, R4D supported Ghana’s Ministry of Health in developing the Health Information System Strategic Plan (HISSP) 2022–2025, a comprehensive blueprint for data governance and health information management. This plan, approved by the Minister of Health, guides coordinated, stakeholder-driven efforts to enhance real-time data use for policymaking, global reporting and health outcomes. The HISSP also strengthens capacity across all levels for data use and research. To operationalize HISSP objectives, R4D worked alongside the government to design, develop and deploy Ghana’s National Health Database (NHD), a centralized, authoritative platform that consolidates data from national health agencies to improve coordination, interoperability and evidence-based decision-making. Launched in September 2024, the NHD currently hosts data from key institutions and will continue expanding to support a more comprehensive and responsive health information ecosystem.
Supporting Ethiopia to scale up multisectoral nutrition information systems
As part of our work on the Data for Decisions in Nutrition (DataDENT), funded by the Gates Foundation, R4D collaborated with Ethiopia’s Seqota Declaration Federal Program Delivery Unit (SD F-PDU) at the Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) to advance the country’s digital nutrition data ecosystem. Our efforts focused on supporting the scale-up of two multisectoral nutrition information systems: 1) a platform that tracks program implementation across multiple sectors (Unified Nutrition Information System for Ethiopia) and 2) a system that monitors financial and partnership resources supporting multisectoral nutrition programs (Resource Tracking and Partnership Management Tool). Through this collaboration, R4D conducted a comprehensive assessment of the barriers to effective data collection and use, including institutional processes and capacity constraints, and supported the development of a costed capacity development plan tailored for SD F-PDU to strengthen the data system scale up and sustainability.
Assessing Ethiopia’s nutrition data ecosystem
As part of our work on the Data for Decisions in Nutrition (DataDENT), funded by the Gates Foundation, R4D is conducting a comprehensive assessment of Ethiopia’s multisectoral nutrition data ecosystem. This effort includes developing a detailed nutrition data ecosystem map and identifying strengths, challenges, and opportunities to enhance both sectoral administrative data systems and multisectoral nutrition data systems. In collaboration with government stakeholders, we will co-design practical, sustainable solutions to address critical data challenges and capitalize on identified opportunities. This work aims to strengthen data-driven decision-making across sectors, ultimately supporting improved nutrition outcomes in Ethiopia.
