Data Zetu (“Our Data” in Swahili) aims to empower communities to make better, more evidence-based decisions to improve their lives.

The program works with communities across Tanzania to discover issues that matter most to them, especially those that pertain to public health. Then we work with stakeholders to arm them with skills and tools to make sense of data related to those challenges. As a result, we’re helping to foster the use of open data that is relevant, hyperlocal, and actionable.

• Data Zetu works at the hyperlocal level in 14 wards located in DREAMS districts—priority areas that have the highest rates of HIV in the country.
• In 8 months, 81% of over 100 organization representatives reported becoming more confident in engaging with data. On average, each training participant in turn trains more than four colleagues on these data skills.
• More than 600 Tanzanians have produced thousands of community-identified challenges, which have been published online as open data. Half of all visitors who access this information are Tanzanian.
• With the support of our Media Fellows, leading national media outlets have published more than 60 data-driven stories, which reached 40,000 online readers.

• Foster and amplify tangible examples of how data is used to inform specific decisions at the community level.
• Build “data confidence” and skills within stakeholder organizations to find, clean, share, and use datasets.
• Promote the use of tools—online and offline—that make information accessible, relevant, and digestible for every Tanzanian.

• Listening campaigns convening thousands of Tanzanians and community leaders across 14 wards to understand and deconstruct daily issues at the top of their minds.
• Workshops and trainings with community organizations and local government leaders to help them find, clean, and share datasets that address pieces of the challenges identified by communities.
• Digital and offline tools—such as graffiti data visualizations in urban centers and online platforms—that make information about those challenges more accessible to community members.

E-mail address: habari@datazetu.org