Data-Driven Development: How Rwanda is Pioneering Health Information Systems for Improved SDG Monitoring

The Government of Rwanda has been deeply committed to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and has taken a whole-of-government approach to owning, integrating, and implementing the SDGs. Integrating the SDGs into national development plans (Vision 2050, the National Strategy for Transformation - NST, NST1 (2017-2024)) reflects the government's continued commitment to using the goals as a blueprint to develop and achieve health-related SDGs.

Strengthening and adapting health information systems is key to Rwanda's efforts to achieve SDGs. To achieve this, Rwanda has taken a phased approach to strengthen its National Statistical Systems by implementing successive National Strategy for the Development of Statistics (NSDS-II 2014-18 and NSDS-III 2019-24) to integrate SDG indicators into the national framework for monitoring and evaluation.

The first step to identifying and fulfilling relevant health-related SDG indicator requirements was to develop an official national list of all SDG indicators assigned to all NST1 pillars. In 2019, the national statistical system produced 60 per cent of the SDGs applicable to Rwanda, across all sectors.

Furthermore, 70 percent of health-related SDGs were available for reporting in 2020. To address this data gap, the Ministry of Health worked with the World Health Organization (WHO) and other key stakeholders for Health-SDGs in Rwanda, namely the Rwanda Biomedical Center, National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda and other relevant ministries, institutions, and agencies to develop a comprehensive metadata handbook to integrate each selected health-SDG indicator into health information systems in Rwanda. This phased approach has increased the percentage of SDG indicators for which data is available and monitored through administrative data systems; and increased capacity of Rwanda's health information system (HIS) to provide timely, reliable, and disaggregated data for evidence-based decision-making and measure progress on SDG targets, including Universal Health Coverage.

This case study was originally published as a blog article on WHO AFRO iAHO. 

By TRAN NGOC Candide, BADEJO Okikiolu, MOYO Thandekile N., SY Sokona & Serge Bataliack

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