CoSMMA Database: Collaborative Smart Mapping of Mini-grid Action

The CoSMMA database, initiated by FERDI, provides a systematic mapping of decentralized electrification projects. It documents 2,712 observed effects from 403 mini-grid projects, sourced from 125 peer-reviewed evaluation studies. The data includes technical, economic, and organizational project characteristics alongside their social, economic, and environmental impacts.

Use Cases

• Identifying best practices in mini-grid deployment based on documented project characteristics and outcomes.
• Analyzing correlations between technical/economic project features and reported social or environmental effects.
• Mapping the geographic and temporal growth of evaluated decentralized energy systems across Africa.
• Meta-analysis of impact evaluation studies on energy access interventions.

Strengths

• Contains a substantial collection of 2,712 documented effects from 403 distinct projects.
• Sources data from 125 peer-reviewed or working-paper evaluation studies, suggesting academic rigor.
• Cross-platform availability (Dataverse, Figshare) indicates community validation and reuse potential.

Limitations

• Column names and full data schema are not provided in the available metadata, limiting immediate usability.
• Conflicting author attribution between sources (Berthelemy, Jean-Claude vs. Issakha THIAM) creates provenance uncertainty.
• The dataset size (11 MB) and lack of row count suggest the data structure or documentation may be incomplete.

Provenance

Source

FERDI (Fondation pour les études et recherches sur le développement international)

Collection Method

Systematic collection and documentation from published evaluation studies.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-04

Geography

Africa (inferred from tags and project focus)