Building Evidence on National Malaria Data Repository as a decision support tool of Use of Data for decision making in Malaria Programme, Nigeria

Several decision-support tools for use in the health sector exist to address barriers to data-informed decision making in many malaria-endemic countries, including Nigeria. However, the evaluation of such decision support tools is still scanty. As part of the drive to help reduce malaria in high burden countries, the WHO has identified data for decision-making as a key area to achieve impact. In response, Nigeria has established a functional national malaria data repository (NMDR) with programme tracking dashboards launched in 2020. This study presents an evaluation of the short-term evidence of the NMDR as a decision support tool at the national level during the development of the last Global Fund (GF) funding request and the national malaria strategic plan (NSP) in Nigeria. The specific objectives of the research are: 1) to review the national level use of data for developing the 2014 – 2020 national strategic plan and 2018 – 2020 global fund funding request prior to the implementation of the NMDR, 2) to evaluate how the NMDR facilitates the use of evidence in the development of the 2021 – 2023 Global Fund funding request at three months post-NMDR deployment and 3) to assess how the NMDR facilitates the use of evidence for the development of the 2021 – 2025 strategic plan at nine months post-deployment of the NMDR. This research adopted a retrospective policy analysis using qualitative assessments of key informant interviews, participant observations, and document analysis. To obtain a baseline of data availability and use prior to the NMDR deployment, I carried out a document review of the previous strategic documents and correspondences during the document development. Next, I carried out a periodic evaluation of the use of evidence for decision making within the GF funding request, which was submitted three months post-NMDR, and the NSP, which was submitted six months post-NMDR deployment. The primary outcome of the evaluation demonstrates that the NMDR bridges the gap of availability of data and facilitates the use of data during the two strategic documents development. Even though data availability has improved over the past few years, it is still essential to have the right tools to make the data more accessible. This study has attempted to demonstrate the effect that the NMDR tool can have. However, it also points out that there is still a lot of work to achieve a satisfactory level of evidence used for decision making in the country.