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Improving Food Aid Distribution through Photo Verification Leona Rosenblum Global mHealth Forum National Harbor, 2014

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Defining the Problem

Food aid distribution is complex and difficult to track

A good food aid Commodity Management System prevents losses by removing ambiguity

At the center of the system are beneficiaries-the goal is ensuring that commodities reach them.

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LAUNCH Project Context Goal: improve food security and reduce chronic malnutrition in Liberia

Distributes supplementary food rations to pregnant women and children under two

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graphic or photo.

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Beneficiary Registration: from paper to Magpi Paper registration: slow and

inaccurate Began using Magpi in April

2012 Wait time dropped from

14.1 weeks to 4.7 weeks

Mobile registration reduced the wait time for new beneficiaries by two thirds.

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Why Innovate Distribution? System remained paper based Non-verifiable thumb prints Easily transferrable paper

tickets Time consuming and unwieldy

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Photo-based and Paperless Mobile data collection platform + photos creates a powerful tool Photos act as unique ID and allow for

accurate verification at point of distribution and at HQ Improve efficiency of distributions and

decrease reporting time

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graphic or photo.

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Photo Distribution

With a photo for every eligible recipient: Barcode scan to bring up the

correct ration card Selection of household member

by name and photo New photo for verification Ration size confirmed GPS coordinates

Name

Name 2

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Photo Verification

Records uploaded to SurveyCTO server, downloaded and imported to Access database where visual verification process then generates report.

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Test the new concept

Two Food Distribution Points, >400 beneficiaries 11 Project staff trained Forms built on SurveyCTO Run off of Google Nexus 7

Photos were added to registration, distribution and verification systems.

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Preliminary Results Photo registration, distribution, and verification were all feasible and easy to use.

Early evidence shows that the tablet-based photo system improved accuracy and speed of distribution and reporting

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Challenges & Lessons Learned Ebola outbreak

Photo sizes/upload download times

Manual, non-automated processes

Privacy questions

Changes to Head of Household

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What’s next? Integration and Automation In the context of the Ebola epidemic, is a non-touch identification system more important than ever? For a system like this to work on larger scale, importing new photos and loading the months photos on a tablet must be simplified. We are envisioning and integrated application for the future.

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graphic or photo.

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Any questions?