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Geo-Enabling initiative for Monitoring and Supervision (GEMS)

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The Geo-Enabling initiative for Monitoring and Supervision (GEMS) was launched to systematically enhance Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) as well as supervision in fragile and conflict-affected settings. This is achieved by building capacity among clients, partners, and Bank teams on the ground, to leverage field-appropriate technology for digital data collection and analysis. Using these tools and methods allows operations to enhance the transparency and accuracy of M&E and increase the accountability of third-party monitoring (TPM). At the same time, GEMS provides platforms for remote supervision, real-time risk monitoring, and portfolio mapping for coordination across projects and partners.

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June 24, 2021

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GEMS workshop in Nigeria. Photo: World Bank

Creating a Global Public Good by building capacity in digital data collection and analysis

Context

As developing countries and donors seek to enhance the transparency of development interventions and maximize their impact, there is a need for solutions that provide reliable real-time insights into field activities and help track the geographic footprint of development interventions. The Geo-Enabling initiative for Monitoring and Supervision aims to help address this need by creating a digital public good and enable local counterparts to ‘bring eyes on the ground, where we cannot always have feet on the ground’.

With support from the Korea Trust Fund for Economic and Peacebuilding Transitions (KTF), the World Bank launched GEMS to systematically enhance Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) of development activities, as well as real-time risk management in development contexts. Since 2021, GEMS has also received support from the World Bank Group Partnership Fund for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to further scale its support around the world.

Strategy

GEMS is launched on the ground through 3-day workshops offered to a broad range of stakeholders. The aim of the initial trainings is to build capacity among project teams, government agencies, and partners on the ground to leverage low-cost open-source technology, such as KoboToolbox, and simple methods for customized digital data collection and analysis to gain real-time insights on local dynamics that can inform decision making.

Using GEMS systematically allows development actors to enhance the accuracy and accountability of M&E and create customized platforms for remote supervision, real-time risk management, and coordination across projects, sectors, and partners.

For example, centralized digital portfolio platforms can help remotely supervise and map operations across projects, sectors, and countries, as in the Azerbaijan Rural Investment Project; project-specific digital M&E platforms can monitor field activities across the project cycle using structured indicators, photos, and other rich data; enhanced Third Party Monitoring (TPM) allows direct access to TPM data (monitor-the-monitors approach), providing more transparency; and GEMS also provides real-time monitoring of environmental and social risks and safeguards.

Beyond the real-time monitoring of World Bank-funded projects, GEMS can also be autonomously leveraged by government agencies for geo-enabled baseline assessments of critical infrastructure and service provision (e.g. conditions of roads, hospitals, schools); real-time tracking of delivery of equipment and goods (e.g. machinery, medications, text books); monitoring of social protection activities (e.g. public works, cash transfers, trainings); and multi-stakeholder engagement (e.g. perception or feedback surveys).

Results

GEMS has supported project implementation, citizen engagement, and risk management around the world proving indispensable for accountable real-time monitoring of hundreds of development projects.

State of GEMS implementation as of October 2026:

Supported over 1,500 projects implementing investments of >USD 100 billion in more than 100 countries worldwide.
Built digital real-time monitoring capacity with more than 15,000 project and government staff.
Generated granular geo-tagged evidence of over 650,000 sub-projects (and growing) with precise location data, field photos, and activity-specific indicators.

Because of its capacity-building focus and impact on the ground, GEMS was listed by the UN Innovation Network among the Best Innovations in 2020and received the Geospatial World Excellence Awardfrom the Geospatial World Forum.

Projects that have benefited from GEMS operate in a variety of different contexts, including in conflict settings such as Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen; countries facing institutional fragility such as Guinea-Bissau, Kosovo and Sudan; fragile island nations such as Haiti, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands; as well as middle-income countries like the Philippines, Brazil, and Pakistan. Some examples for the use of GEMS across regions and sectors include:

Afghanistan--GEMS helped track the distribution of seeds to over 280,000 farmers across the country as part of a COVID-19 emergency response project.
Democratic Republic of Congo--Detailed data on 60,000+ schools was collected via GEMS in a few months, allowing the government to enhance service delivery in education throughout the country.
Niger--GEMS helped plan and supervise infrastructure investments of refugees, internally displaced people, and host communities in fragile regions.
Azerbaijan--GEMS supported a country-wide community-driven development project and helped establish a digital citizen engagement platform for thousands of project sites.
Myanmar--GEMS helped to manage environmental and social risks and safeguards during implementation of a nation-wide electrification project.

Partners

GEMS is closely cooperating with a broad range of internal and external partners. This includes a collaboration with UNHCR and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative on the development of the open-source data platform KoBoToolbox. A partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA) focuses on building capacity in the use of Earth Observation through satellite imagery for development monitoring. In addition, GEMS has engaged with various bilateral and multilateral donors, development agencies and NGOs and welcomed their staff to training workshops on data collection and analysis.

2026-10-13T00:00:00.000Z

To further scale the implementation of GEMS and support governments and development partners globally through digital M&E systems, GEMS is now teaming up with the Global Evaluation Initiative (GEI) to offer its capacity-building support to developing countries and partner agencies around the world and strengthen monitoring systems through simple technology and sustainable methods.

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