Food security programmes in the Horn of Africa operate in some of the world's most challenging environments: fragile states, conflict-affected areas, extreme climate variability, and limited connectivity. Coordinating a single programme across six countries — each with different data standards, languages, and institutional capacities — requires more than good intentions. It requires a Management Information System built for the realities of the region.
What BREFONS Required
The Multi-National Programme to Build Resilience for Food and Nutrition Security in the Horn of Africa (BREFONS), funded by a leading continental development bank and its climate adaptation partners, needed a digital backbone that could handle real-time data collection from field teams in remote areas, aggregate M&E indicators across six national systems, generate donor-compliant reports automatically, and surface anomalies that indicated implementation delays or data quality issues — all without requiring constant connectivity in the field.
Offline-capable mobile data collection for field teams in areas without reliable internet
Automated aggregation of M&E indicators from 6 national country offices
Real-time programme dashboards for multilateral DFI and climate adaptation programme managers
Donor-compliant reporting generated automatically from operational data
GIS-enabled beneficiary mapping at the sub-district level across all six countries
Beneficiary de-duplication algorithms preventing double-counting across country programmes
Impact: 3 Million Beneficiaries, One System
Since deployment, the BREFONS MIS has become the operational nerve centre of a programme reaching over 3 million beneficiaries across Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan, and Djibouti. Programme leads can see — in real time — which interventions are on track, which regions are falling behind, and where data quality requires field follow-up. This visibility has directly improved programme efficiency and the quality of evidence available for policy advocacy at the African Union level. For Rosewill Bome Technologies, BREFONS represents what MIS should be: not a reporting burden, but a decision-support system that makes the difference between a good programme and a great one.