Catholic Relief Services Enhances Agricultural Impact Assessment through Collaborative Data Analytics Initiative

“Clarista has given us crucial visibility into data health, made it easy to identify and tag sensitive information, and helped standardize definitions across our A4I initiatives. These capabilities are elevating our data quality and governance while setting a strong foundation for advanced, analytics-driven insights.”

Executive Summary

Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is a leading humanitarian organization. One of its programs, Water Smart Agriculture II (WSA2), focuses on diversifying food and market crop production, linking farms to markets, improving livelihood opportunities within the agricultural sector, and providing smallholder farmers with improved access to agricultural information through in-person and digital extension tools. The program collaborates with a network of 1,000 model farms and 5,000 satellite farms, directly reaching 6,000 producers.  

WSA2 program team sought to enhance their existing tools for measuring farmland productivity and equipping the local Program Coordinators with the critical information to measure and maximize the impact of their efforts. While the organization possessed valuable data, it was distributed across different systems, languages, and formats, creating challenges in deriving consistent insights.  

Through the Analytics for Impact (A4I) initiative, CRS led a collaborative data enhancement project with technical support from Clarista and other partners. This multi-stakeholder effort made significant progress in six months:  

• Development of a standardized catalog and classification system for agricultural metrics  

• Implementation of processes to harmonize commodities data received in different languages, metrics, and currencies  

• Creation of improved access to program participation and performance indicators  

• Enhanced reporting capabilities through structured data organization  

• Initial improvements in crop yield analysis through data-driven insights  

This ongoing initiative is building upon the expertise of CRS program managers, equipping them with additional tools to make data-informed decisions while enhancing the organization's ability to communicate farmer outcomes to key stakeholders.  

Opportunity Identification

In 2023, CRS conducted a cluster analysis of 1,000 initial farms across Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, based on their characteristics and crop yields, using both project-collected and remotely sensed data. The cluster analysis provided CRS with valuable insights for tailoring program interventions, measuring program impact, and enhancing data analysis capacity. This led to the formalization of the strategic Data Management and Data Science program – Analytics for Impact (A4I) - to strengthen CRS’ analytic capabilities, support the agency's strategy, and deliver increased value to CRS projects and the people it serves. CRS selected Clarista as one of the enablers in achieving these objectives.  

Solution: A Three-Phase Collaborative Approach

Phase 1: Connect

Under CRS's architectural leadership, the Analytics for Impact initiative began by strengthening connections between existing data sources. By enhancing the integration between their Azure Data Lake and Snowflake infrastructure, the team worked to create a more unified view of agricultural program data. CRS led the development of a comprehensive data dictionary to ensure consistency and understanding, with Clarista providing technical support in data governance.  

Phase 2: Manage

The second phase focused on data standardization and governance. CRS directed the implementation of improved tools to catalog program-level metrics, classify personally identifiable information data, and streamline the harmonization of data across different languages and measurement units. This collaborative effort created a more standardized approach to agricultural data that could be applied across regions and programs. The team also implemented enhanced quality checks and validation processes to improve data consistency and accuracy.  

Phase 3: Consume

In the ongoing third phase, CRS is enhancing how program managers interact with agricultural data. The team is developing interactive dashboards to provide better insights into soil conditions, crop yields, and program effectiveness. These standardized datasets are beginning to support more sophisticated analysis for evaluating program outcomes. Importantly, the enhanced tools are being designed with input from field staff to ensure accessibility for users with varying levels of technical expertise.  

Emerging Impact

Operational Improvements

• More efficient data processing workflows  

• Reduced manual reconciliation efforts through improved standardization  

• Enhanced monitoring capabilities for program performance across regions  

• Decreased time spent addressing basic data-related questions from program managers  

Strategic Advancements

• More informed decision-making through improved data organization  

• Enhanced resource allocation based on more consistent program data  

• Potential for increased program effectiveness through more targeted approaches  

• Strengthened foundation for donor communications  

Stakeholder Engagement

• Evolution of reporting to include more data-supported narratives for various audiences  

• Clearer demonstration of program activities and outcomes  

• Improved transparency in program monitoring  

“Clarista has played an integral role in strengthening the data governance pillar within our broader Analytics for Impact (A4I) initiative. Their platform has provided critical visibility into data health, enabled us to tag sensitive information, and helped enforce consistent definitions across our A4I programs. These capabilities not only support better data quality and stewardship but also lay the groundwork for future advanced analytics-driven insights. Just as importantly, Clarista has been a true partner, working closely with our teams to adapt their tools to our evolving needs and helping us drive greater value from our data assets.”  

  Erick V. Ngwiri, Director of Global Data & Analytics and Analytics for Impact (A4I) co-lead, Catholic Relief Services (CRS)

Conclusion

CRS's ongoing data enhancement journey demonstrates their commitment to continuous improvement in humanitarian work. By bringing together multiple stakeholders under the Analytics for Impact initiative and leveraging CRS's field expertise alongside technical capabilities from partners like Clarista, they are strengthening their ability to transform agricultural data into actionable insights.  

The initiative addresses key operational challenges while laying the groundwork for increasingly data-informed humanitarian work. Through this collaborative effort, CRS is creating an evolving framework for measuring and improving agricultural program effectiveness, enhancing transparency and impact assessment capabilities in its vital humanitarian efforts.  

This case study illustrates how humanitarian organizations can thoughtfully enhance their existing data practices in partnership with partners like Clarista to further their mission and effectively communicate meaningful impact to stakeholders.

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