https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/ https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/simisola-adedeji.png Simisola Adedeji - Digital Health & M&E Expert Simisola Adedeji, Monitoring and Evaluation Officer at WHO Nigeria and digital health advocate championing technology-led public health across Africa https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/about https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/simisola-adedeji.png Simisola Adedeji - Public Health Systems Architect Simisola Adedeji, M&E Officer at WHO Nigeria, public health systems architect and digital health advocate https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/blog/career-global-health-m-and-e https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/opengraph-image Building a Career in Global Health M&E: A Practical Roadmap A career in global health M&E is one of the most intellectually demanding and practically consequential roles in international development. It sits at the intersection of epidemiology, programme design, data systems, and strategic management and it directly determines whether health programmes produce the outcomes they are designed for. https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/blog/who-outbreak-response-lessons https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/opengraph-image WHO Outbreak Response: Lessons Learned From the Field Fifty-three thousand case investigations. COVID-19. Cholera. Mpox across 27 local government areas. Circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2. Each of these responses taught something different not about the pathogen, but about the systems designed to contain it. https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/blog/how-to-design-m-and-e-indicators https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/opengraph-image How to Design M&E Indicators for Global Health Programmes An indicator is only as useful as the decision it informs. A results framework filled with indicators that no one uses to make decisions is not a monitoring system it is a reporting burden. Yet most global health programmes design indicators backwards: starting with what is easy to count, then constructing a rationale for why it matters. https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/blog/real-time-disease-surveillance-digital https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/opengraph-image Real-Time Disease Surveillance in the Digital Era The 60% reduction in outbreak confirmation time I helped achieve across WHO programmes in Nigeria did not come from faster technology. It came from designing a system where the right data reached the right person at the right time and where that person had a defined protocol for what to do when it arrived. https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/blog/results-based-management https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/opengraph-image Results-Based Management in Global Health: A Practical Guide Most global health programmes measure what they do. Results-Based Management demands that they measure what changes because of what they do. That distinction between activity tracking and outcome accountability is the difference that determines whether a programme learns, adapts, and improves, or simply reports and repeats. https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/blog/integrated-disease-surveillance-and-response https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/opengraph-image Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR): A Systems Perspective Every African Union member state has formally adopted the Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response framework. Most have IDSR-aligned reporting tools, IDSR-trained personnel, and IDSR-based national surveillance guidelines. Yet when outbreaks occur across West Africa, response gaps appear at precisely the points the IDSR framework was designed to close. https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/blog/logframe-global-health https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/opengraph-image Logframe in Global Health: From Design to Use The logical framework or logframe is probably the most universally required and least effectively used tool in global health M&E. Almost every WHO, USAID, GAVI, and Global Fund programme produces one. Very few programmes use it as it was intended: as a living document that links planning decisions to monitoring data and drives management action. https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/blog/dhis2-data-quality https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/opengraph-image DHIS2 Data Quality: How to Build Systems That Produce Reliable Data Moving immunisation data quality from 54% to 81% across all reporting sites in the WHO polio programmes did not come from training health workers to enter data more carefully. It came from redesigning the system so that poor data quality was harder to produce than good data quality. Data quality is a design problem with a design solution. https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/blog/m-and-e-glossary-global-health https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/opengraph-image M&E Glossary: Essential Terms for Global Health Monitoring and Evaluation Monitoring and evaluation has a language problem. The same term means different things in different frameworks. This glossary establishes working definitions for the terms used throughout this blog series and across the WHO programmes I support so that every article builds on a shared foundation. https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/blog/outbreak-surveillance-mistakes https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/opengraph-image 7 Outbreak Surveillance Mistakes That Cost Lives And How to Fix Them The 60% reduction in outbreak confirmation time achieved across WHO programmes in Nigeria did not come from better technology. It came from identifying and fixing the structural failures that were slowing detection, investigation, and response mistakes so common they have become invisible. https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/blog/dhis2-dashboard-best-practices https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/opengraph-image DHIS2 Dashboard Best Practices: Designing Dashboards That Drive Decisions The question I ask every time I review a DHIS2 instance: who opens this dashboard at 7am on a Monday morning, and what decision do they need to make within the next hour? If the person who built the dashboard cannot answer that, it is not a decision-support tool. It is a data display. https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/blog/what-is-dhis2 https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/opengraph-image What is DHIS2? A Plain-Language Guide for Health System Professionals DHIS2 is the most widely deployed health information system in the world. More than 100 countries use it to manage health data. Nigeria runs its entire national disease surveillance infrastructure on it. The WHO programmes I support depend on it daily and yet experienced global health professionals are routinely uncertain what it actually is. https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/blog/dhis2-tracker-configuration-outbreak-surveillance https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/opengraph-image DHIS2 Tracker Configuration for Outbreak Surveillance Most outbreak surveillance failures are not failures of data collection. They are failures of system design in situations where data captured never reaches the people who need to act on it, in the form they need it, at the time it matters. https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/blog/digital-health-africa-opportunity https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/opengraph-image Why Digital Health Is Africa's Biggest Opportunity Africa's healthcare challenges are immense, but so is the opportunity to leapfrog legacy systems with digital-first health innovation. Here's why now. https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/blog/lessons-in-public-health-nine-years-in https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/opengraph-image Lessons in Public Health: Nine Years In, Here Is What I Know After over nine years spanning polio eradication, disease surveillance, immunisation, and health systems strengthening across Nigeria, here is an honest account of what the work has taught me. https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/blog/lessons-in-public-health-coordination https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/opengraph-image Lessons in Public Health: Coordination is the Hardest Part Lesson 8 of 9: In public health, the technical solutions are rarely the bottleneck. What slows us down is the human and institutional challenge of getting multiple organisations to move in the same direction at the same time. https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/blog/lessons-in-public-health-polio-systems-thinking https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/opengraph-image Lessons in Public Health: What Polio Eradication Taught Me About Systems Thinking Lesson 7 of 9: The global polio eradication programme is one of the most complex public health endeavours ever attempted. Working inside it taught me that you cannot solve a systems problem by optimising one part of the system. https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/blog/mpox-surveillance-lessons https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/opengraph-image What Mpox Surveillance Taught Me About Data and Disease Detection Lessons from investigating 231 suspected Mpox cases across 27 LGAs in Imo State, and what the data tells us about the future of disease surveillance in Nigeria. https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/blog/lessons-in-public-health-surveillance-social-contract https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/opengraph-image Lessons in Public Health: Surveillance is a Social Contract Lesson 6 of 9: Disease surveillance works only when communities participate willingly. That participation is not automatic. It is earned, and it can be lost. https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/blog/lessons-in-public-health-communities-not-passive https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/opengraph-image Lessons in Public Health: Communities Are Not Passive Recipients Lesson 5 of 9: One of the most damaging assumptions in global health is that communities are blank slates waiting to receive interventions. They are not. They have knowledge, priorities, and agency that any effective programme must engage with. https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/blog/lessons-in-public-health-policy-not-enemy https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/opengraph-image Lessons in Public Health: Policy Is Not the Enemy of Progress Lesson 4 of 9: Field practitioners often see policy as bureaucratic obstruction. After working at the intersection of policy and implementation for over nine years, I have come to see it differently. https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/blog/lessons-in-public-health-last-mile https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/opengraph-image Lessons in Public Health: The Last Mile Is Where Health Systems Are Won or Lost Lesson 3 of 9: Health policies designed at the national level are only as effective as their implementation at the community level. The "last mile" is not a delivery problem. It is a design problem. https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/blog/lessons-in-public-health-data-without-context https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/opengraph-image Lessons in Public Health: Data Without Context Misleads Lesson 2 of 9: In over nine years of working with health data across Nigerian states, the most dangerous errors I have seen were not caused by bad data. They were caused by good data interpreted without adequate context. https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/blog/lessons-in-public-health-passion-not-enough https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/opengraph-image Lessons in Public Health: Why Passion Alone Is Not Enough Lesson 1 of 9: Over nine years into a public health career, the lesson I return to most often is the one that took the longest to truly understand: passion is not a strategy. https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/blog/mne-digital-transformation https://www.simisolaadedeji.com/opengraph-image Modernising M&E: From Paper Forms to Real-Time Dashboards How digital M&E tools are compressing the feedback loop between health programme implementation and strategic decisions, and what it takes to get the transition right.