High frequency monitoring using mobile phones:

relevance for Bank operationsHans Hoogeveen

World Bank and Twaweza

SEDP capitation grant monitoring January 24 2011, World Bank TTL of the Secondary Education

Development Program (SEDP) requests Twaweza to assist in monitoring the disbursement capitation grants.

As per Letter of Sector Policy, Tshs 10,000 per student is expected to be received by all secondary schools by January 31st.

February 1st HakiElimu and Twaweza announce in the media they will collect information to monitor the receipt of capitation grant by schools.

Between February 1st and March 15th 50 randomly selected headmasters are called and asked questions about receipt of the capitation grant.

March 25th results are publicly launched.

Results of SEDP capitation grant monitoring

By January 31st, Ministry of Finance had only released Tshs 390 per student instead of the expected Tshs 10,000

Most schools had received nothing

During the launch it became evident that Ministry of Finance had released the capitation grant in full, in the week prior to the launch.

Elements that made this possible The PAD contained a well formulated, time bound

indicator

There was a third party monitor able to collect quality data who was committed to going public with the findings. This put pressure on Government (and the World Bank)

Different approaches to monitoring with mobile phones

(1) Survey plus mobile phone follow up

Dar es Salaam Mobile Phone Survey (like Sudan survey)

Phase 1 550 households in baseline Weekly follow up (8-10 questions) using new or existing questions Respondent remuneration Call centre (flexible; works with illiterate respondents and low-end

phones; cheap) Response rate > 70%, requiring ex-post reweighting of the sample Part of non-response due to intra-household dynamics and could be

reduced further

Phase 2 (starts May 2011) Use survey for CAS and project monitoring Requires close collaboration between independent monitor and TTLs to

identify relevant indicators

(2) Baseline and follow up from a call centreDSM water kiosk survey Twaweza visited water kiosks to ask price of water and to

collect telephone numbers of kiosk owners and clients Follow up during second round through telephone

Prices at DSM water kiosks

Results used by regulator and during bank supervision

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Official price

(3) Data gathering by local enumeratorsIndependent CPI:

Teams of 2 enumerators and 1 supervisor collect price data in 21 urban and rural locations on monthly basis.

Enumerators use paper booklet to identify products and fill a paper reporting ‘price’ forms. Call centre collects prices; no tablet pc’s or high end phones are used

All price data are publicly released.

Approach is will verify the quality of official statistics.

Sample page from enumerator price booklet

(4) Citizen feedback using SMS

TZ electricity monitoring Created dedicated (toll free) number Prepared set of codes that can

automatically be processed. This allows high volumes

Respondents sign up voluntarily and giverelevant details (location typically)

Respondents are reminded by SMS to respond

Experimenting with different ways to reach respondents business cards posters

To conclude Real time data collected using mobile phones by third parties can enhance project effectiveness Survey with mobile phones presents a very flexible approach

mostly suited to monitor large scale programs

Specific monitoring activities using mobile phones are feasible for smaller projects Technologically much possible but chose an appropriate technology

For a lasting impact monitoring would probably need to be repeated regularly. The low cost of data gathering using mobile phones allows this.

Third party monitoring could, like financial audits, act as commitment device

This party monitoring requires close collaboration between external monitor and TTL, preferably during project design

Contrary to what is often believed, mobile phone monitoring requires less ICT skills and mostly typical survey skills such as sampling, question design, data analysis and reporting

More informationwww.uwazi.orghhoogeveen@twaweza.orgjhoogeveen@worldbank.org