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Development of the FLOW platform

Akvo FLOW is about to get a significant overhaul, to expand its features and make the service available to a wider group of users. These are our targets:

  1. Prepare the platform for large-scale use.
  2. Make the platform self-service, user friendly, well-documented, supported and affordable, so it can be embraced by the development community with ease.
  3. Add advanced capabilities such as statistical and geospatial analysis, rich map display with aerial data summaries, performance over time, scoring and ranking, and custom dashboards.
  4. Develop a user platform where datasets on core indicators and surveys can be shared, creating a rich publicly available data resource for each geographic area.
  5. Make the code open source and the data accessible through an application programming interface (API), so software developers can contribute and reuse the Akvo FLOW code, and create their own data visualisation and analysis applications.

Have a look at our Akvo FLOW development board, where we keep a public record of the state of Akvo FLOW development.


We keep our code at Github. In the summer of 2012, Akvo FLOW was made open source.

Development roadmap

Our strategy for reaching this goal consists of two phases. In the first phase, the existing software (FLOW 1.0) will be strengthened and documented, with a focus on the core data collection functions and reliable use in the field, while also preparing the system for large-scale uptake. This will lead to Akvo FLOW 1.5, a user-friendly and self-service platform, geared towards common data collection scenarios.

Akvo FLOW 1.5 - what's coming up?

The next release of Akvo FLOW is all about improving the core experience of using the platform. See what's inside Akvo FLOW 1.5 here.

In the second phase, a host of advanced features will be added, such as statistical and geospatial analysis, rich map display with aerial data summaries, trends and performance over time, scoring, custom dashboards, and API access. This will lead to Akvo FLOW 2.0, a system with the capability to accommodate large-scale use in the full spectrum of monitoring and evaluation scenarios.

Subject to appropriate funding, we expect to be able to complete this drive towards Akvo FLOW 2.0 in an 18-month timeframe, starting March 2012.

Our partners

So that we can focus on the drive toward Akvo FLOW 1.5 and 2.0, as well as gather invaluable user experiences using Akvo FLOW 1.0 in the field, we have decided to limit the number of organisations we engage with in the short term to a number of long-term strategic commitments. These guide and test the development of Akvo FLOW, so what’s built is of immediate use to the practice of monitoring development work.

The World Bank, Water for People, the International Water and Sanitation IRC, Water and Sanitation for Africa (WSA, former CREPA) and a number of other organisations are part of this process.