Primero teams up with DIAL

Since 2013, Primero has been growing, learning, and improving. We now have 30 live implementations in 5 regions. We are working with dozens of civil society and government partners to support thousands of end users. With each rollout, our product and processes get better, and our community grows. The demand for Primero has never been so strong. We have our partners to thank for this.

But this demand presents us with a new set of obstacles. For years we have known that achieving global scale would come with trade-offs. How can we continue to provide the kind of hands-on support required by progammes as we take on so many new partners? How can we be efficient when each context has such different requirements, capacities and needs? How can we appeal to programmes to invest in a common approach and adopt a public good product, and avoid the duplication and wasteful use of limited development funding? Most importantly, how can we make Primero sustainable in the long term? Fortunately, we are not the only Technology for Development (T4D) product facing these issues. As it turns out, there are a lot of us. Thankfully, there is help.

The Digital Impact Alliance (DIAL) is an organization that brings together USAID, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Swedish government and the United Nations Foundation, to focus on accelerating the collective efforts of government, industry and development organizations to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Realizing that these ambitious goals will never be reached with the focused, coordinated and inclusive use of technology, DIAL brings together a team of subject matter experts with deep experience on open source development, scaling, community and sustainability. DIAL supports open source initiatives like Primero through its Open Source Center.

Primero and DIAL have signed a partnership agreement that will bring us to the next level. Working closely to review and assess our technology, community and management, this partnership will prepare us for the next stage of the Primero journey. Leveraging DIAL's expertise and convening power in the T4D space, we are looking at planning for results we will achieve ten years from now, and putting in place the processes and structures that will translate Primero scale up into impact for children. This includes a comprehensive analysis of the Primero business model, a deep dive on open data standards and interoperability, an investment in the expansion of the Primero governance structure, and a reinforcement of Primero's positioning as a digital public good. Better evidence, better planning, better results.

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