FID backs innovative solutions to cushion living conditions of vulnerable population

Ms Amina Zakhnouf was speaking recently during the launch of a new project she founded dubbed - “Leveraging Digital Addresses for Evidence-Based Policymaking in Kanifing.

The FID seeks to enhance and improve the living conditions of the most vulnerable populations.

Funded by Fund for Innovation in Development (FID), the project is being jointly implemented by Kanifing Municipal Council and researchers from Paris Dauphine University, Sciences Po Paris and the University of The Gambia.

The project was designed to strengthen Municipal governance through the use of digital addresses (Google Plus Codes), integrated administrative data systems and evidence-based Policymaking. The project sets to boost digital addresses, better data, stronger decisions and better lives.

Ms Zakhnouf explained that the project is open to all types of organizations, research institutions, NGOs, governments, municipalities and profit companies, adding that its defining feature is a tiered financing methodology.

The project, she added, is supported through critical stages of their lifecycle, from pilot to impact evaluation to scale-up.

At each stage, she said they look for potential of impact, cost- effectiveness and potential for scale.

“It is on these three criteria, and rigorous due diligence and vetting that we came to select the first, and now second phase of this project,” she said.

She highlighted that the first phase tested the deployment of Open Location Codes to improve property tax compliance and waste collection coverage in Kanifing.

This, she added, is a concrete illustration of that approach, further stating that FID is now supporting this second phase, which falls under what they call ‘‘our Innovation and Public Policy funding track’’ designed specifically for public entities that wish to integrate a proven
innovation into their operations and commit to continuing to measure its impact as they do so.

She described this phase as a structured effort to institutionalize what has been built, extend it to business licensing and market fees, to better continue generating evidence on open questions including the impact of targeted enforcement and mobile money payments that are relevant well beyond Kanifing.