Digital Square Investments in Global Goods:Approved Global Goods

What are Approved Global Goods?

Through Digital Square Procurement Processes such as the Open Application Process, Global Goods are reviewed by the Peer Review Committee. The Peer Review Committee reviews applications according to the Prioritization Framework, notice scope of work technical requirements and evaluates applications as green-, amber-, or red-lit per the Peer Review Committee Membership Policy. Green-lit applications are recommended for funding immediately; amber-lit applications are recommended for future funding or further exploration; red-lit applications do not fully meet the selection standards/criteria.

A green-lit application meets all criteria for investment through the relevant Notice. The application demonstrates a global good that aligns with country priorities, can adapt to different countries and contexts, and will scale easily across countries.

Digital Square compiles the evaluation provided by the Peer Review Committee by clustering the applications according to the Prioritization Framework for Governing Board review. Digital Square presents the applications, high-level budget summary, Peer Review Committee feedback within the Prioritization Framework, and Digital Square recommendation to the Governing Board.

These applications then receive one of three statuses from the Digital Square Governing Board:

• Approved - Fully Funded;
• Approved - Partially Funded;
• Approved - Contingent on Funding.

Applications that are Approved - Partially Funded or Approved - Contingent on Funding are included in the Digital Square global goods community, including webinars, the Digital Square Basket of Services, and continual funding raising efforts. A list of the global goods that are Approved - Partially Funded or Approved - Contingent Funding can be found below.

Digital Square continues to work closely with a diverse portfolio of investors, advocating for further investments in global goods. We are accelerating and scaling our efforts to expand resource mobilization for global goods and global digital health investments.

Based on feedback from the community, we are improving transparency about which proposals are approved but not yet funded, or are partially funded. Digital Square is working with partners and investors to draw visibility to the approved global good applications, which are currently seeking partial or full funding.

What are the benefits to a Digital Square approved global good?

Concept notes and subsequent applications submitted through the Digital Square open Notice cycles that are approved by the Digital Square Governing Board receive one of three statuses: Approved - Fully Funded; Approved - Partially Funded; Approved - Contingent on Funding. This delineation offers many benefits to organizations with approved global goods:

• Organizations can use their approved status to their advantage and to help encourage donor support for their global good outside of Digital Square.
• Organizations are included in a global good community in which Digital Square offers a platform for technical sharing and learning.
• Organizations can receive support for their global good from a “Digital Square Basket of Services”, which includes in-kind technical, operational and communications assistance (pending staff availability).
• Organizations are able to receive in-kind technical assistance from the DIAL Open Source Center (pending staff availability).
• Digital Square continues to raise funds from a variety of investors to meet funding gaps for global goods approved by the Governing Board.

What kind of support do approved global goods receive from Digital Square?

Digital Square is expanding engagement and support to all approved global good implementers through our Notice cycles as well as our request for application (RFA)s (non-Notice cycle awards). In March 2019, we began offering monthly Global Good Webinars for the global good innovator community. The topics of the webinars range from technical, operational, and communications topics. Digital Square intends for these webinars to be an opportunity for the community to share, learn, and engage both with each other as well as the Peer Review Committee members, who are also invited to these webinars.

Digital Square also seeks to support innovators with in-kind support. We are currently offering a basket of services for Digital Square approved global goods including:

• Quality Assurance: We are able to lend our technical staff to run QA on your global good software to review functionality and test for bugs. We are also available to review technical documentation and training materials for clarity and ease of use.
• Communications: We provide services such as helping partners develop communications strategies and activities, and provide support to their communications products. Based on the Digital Square Communications team availability, these activities include:
  • Inclusion in the Global Goods Guidebook which includes a two-page pull-out entry on each global good
  • Amplification of news and announcements from the global goods community on the Digital Square social media platforms and global goods newsletter
  • Thought partnership for strategic communication workshops to identify your audience and bring that audience to a deeper level of engagement
  • Review of communications and advocacy materials such as flyers, presentations, website
  • Review and/or co-creation of an article to highlight innovations and scale of your global good
  • Social media guidance
• Engineering Support around OpenHIE: We are committed to supporting global good innovators in harnessing the OpenHIE architecture and standards. Linking with currently invested efforts in OpenHIE, we will support partners who need assistance in technical design and guidance to ensure that the global good works within the OpenHIE framework.
• Community Management Support: Despite our best efforts of engagement, it can be challenging for global good community managers to solicit input and get feedback from those implementing software in the field. We are able to support a working group of community managers to share and learn best practices for effective engagement of global good users including secretariat services, outreach approaches etc.
• Operations Support: We provide contractual capacity building resources as found on the Digital Square wiki including: grants and contracts basics, procurement and investment processes. For funded global good innovators through Digital Square, we provide deep dives into specific donor legal restrictions and terms & conditions and a designated operational point of contract for each subaward.

The type and degree to which Digital Square will be able to provide support is dependent on staff availability. We are committed to supporting organizations with approved status and will strive to respond to requests from global good innovators as quickly as possible.

How can approved global goods use this status to their advantage?

Amplify messaging for resource mobilization for global good

Approval through the Digital Square Procurement Processes is validation that a tool or software is an endorsed and approved global good in the digital health sector. We recommend approved global goods harness the talking points provided below, which illustrate the benefits of having an approved application through the Digital Square Open Application Process. These talking points can assist in business development and resource mobilization in support of approved global goods. The Talking Points include:

• Global Good application has been vetted and approved by an expert group of digital health stakeholders through the Digital Square Open Application Process.
• Organization has engaged with the larger global health community to validate and articulate the core/community support/application needs for the global good through the Digital Square Open Application Platform.
• Additional funding for the global good is augmented by the in-kind contributions of Digital Square and other stakeholders to amplify investments.

Global Goods Guidebook A number of global goods have been featured in version 1.0 of the Global Goods Guidebook, which was launched on May 28, 2019. The purpose of the Global Goods Guidebook is to help donors align around scalable, sustainable, accessible, interoperable, and evidence-based digital health global goods that meet country priorities. In addition, it is a guide for health information system designers, evaluators, and integrators to learn best practices in implementing global goods.

The guidebook is designed so that global good content can be extracted as a high-level, endorsed, two-page brief which you can use for advocacy and communication activities. Digital Square will include additional global goods in the guidebook after each Notice so if a global good is not yet featured, it will be included in future versions.

What is Digital Square doing to seek funding for green-lit proposals?

Digital Square continues to work closely with a diverse portfolio of investors, advocating for further investments in global goods. We are accelerating and scaling our efforts to expand resource mobilization for global goods and global digital health investments.

Based on feedback from the community, we are improving transparency about which proposals are approved but not yet funded, or are partially funded. Our updated wiki includes a high-level overview of approved applications so that donors may easily find approved applications. Digital Square is working with partners and investors to draw visibility to the approved global good applications, which are currently seeking partial or full funding.

List of Global Goods that are Approved - Partially Funded

DHIS2

• DHIS2 Community of Practice: The remaining unfunded work will support a full year of the DHIS2 COP to properly establish and institutionalize the CoP into the DHIS2 community. The additional year of funding support will further and solidify the CoP’s place in the community, meeting the demands and requirements by having dedicated staff and hence ensuring sustainability.

Healthsites

• Global Healthsites Mapping Project - Building a curated open data commons of health facility data with OpenStreetMap: The remaining unfunded work includes: Development of a Healthsites mobile application to enable users to update health facility data. Integration with Whatsapp, SMS and voice-based surveys. Internationalization and localization of the Healthsites Web application. Development of the Healthsites Location Validation Index (LVI) which assesses the reliability of health facility data. Enhancement of the Healthsites API. Support data creation and sharing in-country by supporting OpenStreetMap communities in skilling up and training local champions of open health data

OpenCRVS

• Strengthening the Open Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (OpenCRVS) System: The unfunded work accounts for the costs of recruiting two mid-level developers plus international travel to support OpenCRVS work in Bangladesh. This also includes building local capacity to harness OpenHIM and Hearth for OpenCRVS.

OpenELIS

• Integration of the OpenELIS open-source laboratory information system with leading clinical and logistics information systems: OpenELIS is an open-source electronic laboratory information system software used to track patient testing, diagnosis, and results communication.The remaining funded is needed for the workstream activity to merge the OpenELIS Global and Bahmni OpenELIS Code Bases.

OpenHIE

• An Instant OpenHIE: Support for building in clinical use cases that show the instant OpenHIE components working together in a clinical use case.

OpenHIM

• Strengthening and Expanding the Open Health Information Mediator (OpenHIM): The remaining unfunded work is for supporting implementers and the communtity around the core tool. Activities include updating and revisiting the full webpresense of the tool; updating the website and community platform tools; curation for the mediator library and updates to the core and common mediators.

OpenLMIS

• Advancing a collaborative, open, and growing community
• OpenLMIS Community Engagement: The remaining investment would be for further support to the OpenLMIS community including Regaional East and West Africa OpenLMIS workshops, East and West Africa OpenLMIS roadshows, and implementer documentation such as the OpenLMIS toolkit. Additional activities unfunded include community support to encourage open source development on OpenLMIS through programs like Google Summer of Code, Outreachy, and Social Coder.

OpenMRS

• Strengthening the OpenMRS implementer ecosystem through community, quality assurance, education, and partnership: Support for the implementer ecosystem through expanded partnerships in OpenMRS country implementation countries. Support for a toolkit and eLearning materials for implementers.

OpenSRP

• Packaging OpenSRP for Scale and Community-driven National Adoption: The unfunded work is therefore the HR/staffing costs for year two, as well the hosting for the platform, as seen below. It will help continue the activities of managing, coordinating and promoting the CoP in year two.

Open Source LIS Community of Practice

• Building an Open Source LIS Technologies Community of Practice: The remaining investment would be for supporting development of LIS technolgies including software development including coding conventions, and expansion for OpenLab Connect. Portion of unfunded work includes development of LIS technologies. The work also includes support of LIS products to enable interoperability with other systems within the OpenHIE architecture.