Cover letter:

Dear members of the jury,

It is with great pleasure that we present you with our data-journalism work on the Covid-19 pandemic in Tunisia.

Founded in 2014 by a team of journalists, developers and graphic designers, Inkyfada is an independent non-profit media based in Tunis. It serves the public and collective interest.

Inkyfada aims to reveal, show and make accessible what is hidden, participating in a better understanding of the world through investigation, data journalism and the realization of long term reports, portraits, explanatory articles and contextualization.

Inkyfada fully assumes its role of counter-power, with a real impact on the public debate, fighting against the impunity and opacity of the powers that be and against all forms of injustice that result from it. Within an editorial team where journalists collaborate closely with developers and graphic designers, it is part of a larger group of alternative media, innovative and resolutely turned towards the future. It will regularly give its readers an idea of what is best in terms of journalistic storytelling, visual experience or development of new tools.

As with everywhere in the world, Tunisia has been hit hard by the pandemic, threatening an already weakened health system.Thanks to inkyfada’s journalists, designers and developers, we were able to gather figures on the pandemic (daily number of new cases, hospitalised people, number of deaths, etc.) and integrate them into an interactive dashboard. As soon as the vaccination campaign began, we went through the same procedure with the available figures on vaccinations.

Obtaining some of this information proved to be difficult. For example, we faced difficulty compiling data on the number of resuscitation beds across the country, as many impoverished and neglected areas had none at the beginning of the pandemic.

Beyond simply communicating the Covid-19 data, we were able to provide access to information that is oftentimes ambiguous and inacessible. In addition to communication failures, the Tunisian Ministry of Health does not consolidate data related to the pandemic. They are shared in non-usable formats and the authorities often change their logic. In fact, they are not accessible to the general public. By giving access to these data, by consolidating them and by carrying out this visualization work, inkyfada has carried out a public service work instead of the ministry.

Our aim was also to see if the government would respect its objectives with regard to vaccinations. In addition to compiling the official figures, we also developed a projection feature for the upcoming months to see when and whether the government’s targets would actually be met. This feature allowed us to understand how far behind the vaccination campaign was compared to its objectives.

This portfolio is comprised of both data journalism and analysis. Given the lack of communication from authorities, this work is essential to understand the magnitude of the health crisis and the threats it presents. In accordance with inkyfada’s transparency values, we have made all the data available in ‘open data’.

We hope that this work will interest you,

Sincerely,

The inkyfada team

Description of portfolio:

This portfolio is composed of 3 data articles:

• “The Covid-19 Pandemic in Tunisia, in Numbers”.

This article tracks all the data of the Covid-19 pandemic in Tunisia: number of deaths, hospitalisations etc. It also lists the measures imposed by the government to fight Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic, as well as the number of oxygen and resuscitation beds available. Data on number of cases compared to other Maghreb countries is also available.

All of these infographics are interactive and enable the viewer to follow the evolution of the pandemic according to month and/or week. The data is updated daily and dates back to March 2020.

• “In Numbers. Follow the progression of Covid-19 vaccinations in Tunisia”

Similarly, this article compiles all of the data on vaccinations in Tunisia. The number of people registered, the number of people vaccinated with either one or two doses, available vaccines etc. Projections over the coming months were also conceptualised based on the vaccination rate since the beginning of the campaign. Lastly, an interactive map and a presentation of the international ranking of the number of people vaccinated made it possible to see how Tunisia compared to other countries.

• “5 graphs to better understand the magnitude of Covid-19-related deaths in Tunisia”

The summer of 2021 was particularly deadly in Tunisia. To understand the magnitude of the fatalities, inkyfada published 5 interactive graphs, allowing for a death toll comparison with other countries, as well as the lack of screening policy and the saturation rate of hospitals in the country.

Project links:

inkyfada.com/en/2021/02/26/dashboard-covid-19/

inkyfada.com/en/2021/06/21/vaccination-covid-19-tunisia-number/

inkyfada.com/en/2021/08/02/covid-19-number-of-deaths-tunisia/