The INDEPTH Network provides a platform for currently 42 Health and Demographic Surveillance Systems in 19 countries in Africa, Asia and Oceania for scientific exchange and technical collaborations. The HDSS centres spanning Africa, Asia, and Oceania vary widely in their geographic locations and institutional capabilities to cover their populations. Though all member centres share a common interest of demographic and health surveillance, each centre has its own diverse yet often similar, health research portfolio of relevance and importance in the national and international context.

The INDEPTH Network has made considerable efforts to standardize and harmonize data collection tools by developing the Starter Kit, an invaluable resource for new and developing HDSSs. One critical gap which remains to be fully addressed has been the wide variation in the data management systems adapted by different centres from the Household Registrations Systems (HRS v2) software module developed by the Network. Past and ongoing research collaborations (e.g. the Migration and Urbanization Working Group) within the Network have highlighted weaknesses in data management systems in some centres as well as the absence of any mechanism and a common platform for easy and efficient sharing of databases.

For the Network to position itself as a single international window for HDSSs and make it the point of 'first call' by bilateral and multilateral international organizations, it is imperative that the Network ensures not just cross-site comparability of information but also establishes a platform for sharing information efficiently amongst centres. The platform then can be extended to sharing information beyond INDEPTH centres after quality assurance in the public domain once a consensus has been built for the same. In order to enable INDEPTH do this. We initiated iSHARE- INDEPTH Access and Sharing Repository in the year 2006. iSAHRE envisages to build institutional and individual capacity in data management, training young scientists in data quality control and data mining techniques and developing as well as deploying new methodologies to share data effectively for cross-site comparisons. iSHARE began as a Data Sharing working group initiated by three centers namely, Wosera in Paua New Guinea, Kanchananburi in Thailand and Vadu in India and further was expanded to other member centers of INDEPTH in Asia and Africa.