Organisations do not collect data just for the sake of having the data – they collect them because they need information and the data help them to address those needs through analysing the data.

You might need to be able to answer questions like: ‘How many farmers have followed the full best practices curriculum’, ‘how is the household income changing over the years’, ‘which customers have not yet paid their water bills for over 6 months’. If the database has been designed correctly, you will be able to answer such questions and also answer them repeatedly in a consistent way – for example by running a specific report at the end of each month.

When the database is a spatial database you can do additional analyses. You can answer questions like: ‘how many km of pipes of each material and each diameter do we have’ or ‘how many km of pipes of each diameter will need to be replaced in the next 10 years based on their estimated remaining useful life’. In this case, the length of the pipes will be calculated automatically by the database.

Chanzo can support you in articulating your questions and implementing solutions for your data analysis. You can find examples of earlier projects where this was applied here:

• Scenario analysis in water supply network design
• Reporting on performance indicators
• Prioritising investments in water companies using Asset Management Planning