Community Systems Foundation

09/02/2026

In so many parts of the world, September means a new school year is beginning.

Classrooms are opening; Teachers are welcoming new faces; Children are carrying fresh notebooks, renewed hopes and, sometimes, a few first-day nerves. I can still feel those nerves.

Behind each of these moments lies a simple but important responsibility: to ensure that every learner is seen, counted and supported.

Good education depends on good data—not data collected for its own sake, but data that helps us understand who is in school, who is missing, where teachers and resources are most needed, and whether every child is being given the opportunity to learn and thrive.

CSF recognizes the growing community of OpenEMIS users across the world: education ministries, school leaders, planners, statisticians, teachers and technical teams working quietly and persistently to strengthen education systems.

Their work may often happen behind the scenes, but its purpose can be found in every classroom—and in every child whose education is made more visible, more equitable and more possible.

As this new school year begins, we celebrate this community and everyone working to turn better information into better education.

Wishing students, teachers, families and educators everywhere a safe, productive and rewarding year of learning ahead.

08/28/2026

Our thoughts are with the people and communities on both sides of the Nepal–China border today as they face the aftermath of devastating floods and landslides.

Having worked alongside government and UN partners in Nepal and the wider region for many years, we have come to know the strength and resilience of its people and communities. It is deeply difficult to see the loss of life, displacement and damage caused by this disaster.

We extend our sincere condolences to those who have lost loved ones and hope for the safety of those still missing or displaced. Our thoughts are also with the emergency responders and local communities working under extraordinarily difficult conditions.

From all of us at Community Systems Foundation, we stand in solidarity with those affected.

08/24/2026

Gender-based violence remains a serious challenge across the Caribbean, and strengthening the systems that support and protect survivors is an critical part of the response.

I’m pleased to share that CSF has begun a new project with the UN Women Multi-Country Office for the Caribbean to support the strengthening and digitization of the GBV referral pathway in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

This work builds on CSF’s experience developing similar systems, including our work with UNFPA in Djibouti, and continues our partnership with UN Women.

It is difficult and sensitive work, where technology is only one part of the solution. We hope our experience can make a useful contribution to the institutions and people working every day to address GBV in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and across the region.

08/19/2026

The elusive promise of digital transformation....

I’m looking forward to exploring that challenge at the 2026 EdTech Asia Summit in Tokyo this October, where I’ll be joining education, technology, and policy leaders from across the region and beyond.

I'm hoping to tackle a question that I think deserves much more attention:
Why, after decades of investment in education technology, has genuine digital transformation remained so elusive?

I’ll share perspectives from what we see through our work at CSF — and what we may need to do differently to close the gap between deploying technology and actually transforming education systems

More to come as we get closer to Tokyo. Let me know if you'll be there too.

07/15/2026

Every immunization strategy begins with a simple but critical question:

Can we afford to protect every child?

The answer is not simply a matter of funding. It depends on whether governments have the data, tools, and capacity to understand the true cost of delivering sustainable immunization programmes—and to make informed decisions about the future.

Costing is far more than a budgeting exercise. It is the foundation for evidence-based planning, resource mobilization, and long-term programme sustainability.

In our latest article, we explore why national immunization costing has become an essential component of resilient health systems, and how digital public goods such as NIS.Cost are helping countries strengthen planning and decision-making.

📖 Read the full article on the CSF website:
https://www.communitysystemsfoundation.org/index.php/blog/every-national-immunization-strategy-begins-question-can-we-afford-protect-every-child

Every national immunization strategy begins with a question: can we afford to protect every child?Today, governments in more than 60 countries have used NIS.Cost to help answer that question with evidence rather than estimates.

07/10/2026

Digital Transformation Doesn't Start with Technology. It Starts in the Classroom.

Education systems are transformed one classroom, one school, and one educator at a time.

This week in Seychelles, CSF staff were able to sit in on a training session led by the Ministry, working directly with the people who will bring OpenEMIS to life across schools throughout the country.

These week's training focused on school leaders and teachers responsible for implementing OpenEMIS — ensuring they have both the confidence and the practical skills to integrate the system into their daily work.

OpenEMIS is about far more than digitizing records. It creates a shared, trusted source of education data that supports school administration, strengthens communication with the Ministry, and provides timely information to improve planning and decision-making across the education system.

Successful implementation depends on people as much as technology. By investing in practical, hands-on capacity building, Seychelles is laying the foundation for sustainable digital transformation that will continue long after deployment is complete.

Every successful national EMIS begins with the same first step:
empowering the people who use it every day.

We're proud to continue supporting the Ministry of Education as OpenEMIS becomes part of everyday practice in schools across Seychelles.

07/09/2026

As the 2026 UN High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) convenes at UNHQ under the theme "Transformative, equitable, innovative and coordinated actions for the 2030 Agenda and its SDGs for a sustainable future for all," one message stands out:

Progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals depends on trusted national data systems.

Whether measuring SDG progress, informing evidence-based policy, strengthening accountability, or ensuring that resources are allocated where they are needed most, governments rely on high-quality, authoritative data. Behind every meaningful indicator is an information system—and behind every information system are the people and institutions responsible for generating, governing, and using that data.

At CSF, we are privileged to support governments in strengthening these national data ecosystems.

In Trinidad and Tobago, our Data For All platform is helping strengthen the country's national statistical capacity by transforming complex datasets into accessible insights for planning, monitoring, and decision-making. Across multiple countries, the same platform enables governments to monitor and report on national and local development plans, supporting greater transparency, accountability, and results-based management.

In Sierra Leone, the Government is also using the Data For All platform to monitor and report on progress toward the country's Medium-Term National Development Plan. By bringing together data from ministries, departments, and agencies into a single results-based monitoring framework, the platform supports evidence-informed decision-making, strengthens accountability, and enables leaders to track progress against national development priorities.

In Guinea, we are working with the Ministère de la Femme, de la Famille et des Solidarités to strengthen gender statistics through the SAMA platform, helping build sustainable national capacity for decentralized data collection and reporting. In Djibouti, our gender information management system supports coordinated, evidence-based responses to gender-based violence.

And through OpenEMIS, now supporting ministries of education in more than 30 countries, we are helping governments build stronger education data systems that improve planning, resource allocation, and educational outcomes for millions of learners.

Technology alone does not achieve the SDGs. Sustainable progress depends on trusted institutions, national ownership, strong governance, and the ability to transform data into informed action.

As the global community reflects on how to accelerate progress toward the 2030 Agenda, we continue our work collaborating with governments, UN agencies, development partners, and fellow practitioners who share a commitment to strengthening the data systems that underpin sustainable development.

DESA Sustainable Development, ECOSOC

07/09/2026

CSF travels to Conakry next week for an in-country mission with Guinea's Ministère de la Femme, de la Famille et des Solidarités.

With support from UNICEF, Dr. Jeeveeta Soobarah Agnihotri will lead capacity building sessions with MFFS staff on the SAMA platform, the data system CSF built with UNICEF Guinea over the last few months for decentralised data reporting, aimed at generating the Ministry's statistical yearbook. Phase 1 is done. This mission is about making sure the people who run the system day to day have the knowledge and skills, long after we've left the room.

07/09/2026

Continuous capacity building is what turns an EMIS into a sustainable national asset.

This week, CSF OpenEMIS Advisor Abdelrahim Mehyar is back in Seychelles, continuing our long-term partnership with the Ministry of Education through focused technical training that strengthens national capacity to manage and use education data.

While EMIS implementations often emphasize data collection, the true value of an education data system lies in its ability to transform data into evidence for decision-making. This mission is dedicated to that next step—building the Ministry's expertise in data analytics, KPI development, dashboard design, and education data warehouse management using OpenEMIS.

Working closely with a small (but mighty!) group of Ministry focal points, Abdelrahim is transferring practical knowledge and skills that will enable the team to use OpenEMIS software to:
-Produce Ministry-defined Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
-Develop interactive dashboards for monitoring education performance
-Manage and expand the national education data warehouse
-Strengthen the Ministry's capacity to turn trusted data into informed policy and operational decisions

At CSF, we believe successful digital transformation is measured not simply by software deployment, but by the sustained capacity of institutions to own, maintain, and fully utilize their systems. Continuous capacity building in all our work remains central to that commitment.

07/07/2026

AI is assuming a central role in nearly every aspect of our lives—including education and the systems that govern it.

We're asking AI to identify learners at risk, summarize policy, recommend interventions, analyze assessment results, and increasingly shape education strategy.

But one question we don't ask often enough is: Where does AI get its understanding of an education system—and can we trust it?

Provenance matters.

Where did the data originate?
Who collected it?
Has it been validated?
Is it authoritative?
Is it governed?

If AI draws upon fragmented datasets, incomplete records, inconsistent definitions, or information of uncertain provenance, then its insights—regardless of how sophisticated the model—will inevitably reflect those same limitations.

Responsible AI begins with trusted, governed, interoperable education data.

In many ways, these questions may prove more important than the AI model itself.

The team at CSF has been exploring this idea through a new thought paper. We argue that the future of AI in education depends not only on advances in artificial intelligence, but also on sustained investment in what we call Trusted Education Intelligence Infrastructure (TEII)—the institutional, technical, and governance foundations that make AI worthy of public trust.

If AI is increasingly informing education policy, planning, and investment, how do we ensure that the data underpinning those insights is trustworthy, governed, and of known provenance?

This isn't a finished conclusion. It's more the beginning of a conversation.

As we wrap up our paper for publication, I look forward to your thoughts.