The ECOWAS Cluster Annual Report brought together contributions from approximately eight programs working across different thematic areas and countries.

The challenge was not a lack of information. It was the opposite.

Large volumes of content, multiple contributors, and varying writing styles made it difficult to communicate key achievements and lessons in a way that busy stakeholders could quickly understand and use.

The report needed to serve development partners, government stakeholders, ECOWAS institutions, and other regional audiences while presenting a coherent picture of the Cluster's work.

I led the editorial strategy, content structure, information architecture, visual design, data visualization, and editing process.

I also coordinated communications focal persons across programs to gather, refine, and organize content into a unified narrative.

Designing for readers, not reporting requirements

Traditional annual reports often prioritize completeness over usability.

I began by reframing the report around the needs of readers rather than the structure of individual programs. The goal was to help stakeholders quickly understand the most important achievements, challenges, and insights from the reporting period.

‍

Building a clearer narrative

With contributions coming from multiple programs, one of the primary challenges was creating consistency.

I introduced a thematic structure supported by reader-focused summaries, allowing related work to be grouped together and presented within a broader regional story.

This shifted the report from a collection of individual program updates to a more coherent account of collective impact.

‍

Improving scanability

A key design objective was making the report easier to navigate.

I restructured the information architecture so readers could quickly identify areas relevant to their interests without needing to read the document cover to cover.

This included:

• Summary pages highlighting key achievements
• Improved content hierarchy
• Stronger visual signposting
• Data visualizations that supported rapid understanding
• Clear pathways into more detailed sections

The result was a report that supported both quick scanning and deeper exploration.

Data visualization is an increasingly important skill for public health professionals, but training was primarily delivered through in-person workshops. These sessions were costly to organize, limited in reach, and difficult to scale across states and institutions.

The goal was to create a more accessible learning experience that would help public health practitioners build practical data visualization skills while reducing reliance on traditional workshop-based training.

I led the design and implementation of the learning experience, including user research, curriculum development, content structure, visual design, Moodle implementation, and testing.

Understanding learners

I worked with public health stakeholders to understand how professionals currently accessed training, the constraints they faced, and the skills they needed to develop.

A recurring theme was limited time. Many learners were balancing training alongside demanding program responsibilities, making long workshops difficult to attend and even harder to scale.

‍

Designing for flexible learning

The course was structured as a self-paced learning experience that allowed participants to progress at their own pace.

To support different learning styles, the course combined:

• Audio lessons
• Interactive exercises
• Knowledge checks and quizzes
• Real-world examples
• Reflection activities

All learning materials were organized within a single platform, making it easier for participants to access resources, track progress, and continue learning over time.

‍

Simplifying a complex process

Before the platform, training often required participants to travel to a physical location and attend workshops over several days.

The new approach simplified that process by making learning available on demand, reducing barriers to participation while creating a more consistent and measurable learning experience.

‍

Effective HIV prevention requires accurate and up-to-date information about programs, services, and resources. However, data collection practices varied across organizations and locations, making it difficult to develop a comprehensive picture of HIV prevention efforts nationwide.

Without a standardized approach, stakeholders faced challenges coordinating activities, identifying gaps, avoiding duplication of effort, and allocating resources effectively.

The objective was to create a national assessment process that could collect consistent data across all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory while remaining practical for implementing partners to complete.

I led the design and implementation of the assessment system, including workflow design, form architecture, data structure development, stakeholder engagement, testing, implementation, and results visualization.

The project combined Kobo for data collection, R for data analysis, and custom dashboards for reporting and exploration.

Designing for scale

The assessment needed to support data collection across diverse organizations operating in different contexts.

I designed a structured data collection framework that balanced national oversight with state-level ownership of data. This ensured that information could be collected consistently while remaining useful to local stakeholders.

‍

Simplifying data entry

The assessment collected a large amount of information, creating a risk that users would feel overwhelmed during completion.

To reduce this burden, I incorporated:

• Conditional logic to show only relevant questions
• Validation rules to improve data quality
• Save-and-return functionality
• Iterative improvements based on user feedback

The result was a more manageable experience that guided users through complex reporting requirements without overwhelming them.

‍

Making data easier to use

Collecting data was only part of the challenge.

The information also needed to be accessible and actionable.

To support analysis and decision-making, I developed visualizations and dashboards that allowed stakeholders to explore results by theme, geography, and program area.

Branching structures and location-level data, including Local Government Areas (LGAs), improved both accuracy and the usefulness of the final dataset.