Newstalk Magazine is available now for free from the Apple app store.

People probably have a perception about aid work. That it’s rugged, field-based and off-line.  That it’s about getting aid into dangerous and hard to reach places, but not about technology and innovation. That an aid worker’s ‘multi-pocket vest’ might only contain an old camera, a notebook and a pencil. That the only tablet she or he has is to prevent malaria, not for improving the lives of those affected by poverty, war or natural disasters. 

But the old ways are rapidly changing. Aid workers have constantly striven to improve their work, which means focusing on efficiency, effectiveness and most of all: impact, which is where technology has a huge role to play.

For a number of years Concern Worldwide has been investing in targeted programmes that use mobile and web technology to improve the way we help some of the world’s most vulnerable people. The process started when we began to use ‘mobile money’ and smart card technology to get cash to people in times of crisis. Cash has proven to be far more effective than food aid in certain circumstances and mobile money offers a cheap, safe and reliable means of getting it into people’s hands.

Gosbert Mutasingwa interviewing Reuben Nyerere  in Ngara, Tanzania on the 19th April 2013. Photo: Ciarán Walsh

More recently, Concern has been using mobile technology to gather information about our projects. Monitoring and reporting on the progress of our work is amongst the greatest challenges we face. At present we carry out more than 150 surveys a year, across 25 countries. Surveys are required for many reasons; determining project baselines, establishing malnutrition rates and identifying agricultural trends such as growth and crop rates. Concern uses this data to inform decisions and ultimately improve programme quality and impact.

Until recently Concern collected data through traditional paper-based methods. In the field, paper-based data collection incurs a number of challenges; they can get lost, muddy or wet, responses can be illegible and if a change to a survey occurs you might have to start from scratch, resulting in hefty time delays. The results were manually inputted, often by temporary staff, with the inherent cost increases. Human error was always a factor. Remote access to the original survey answers was impossible and it was difficult to refer back to a survey in the case of a mistake with the data input.

The biggest disadvantage was the fact that trends emerging from the data (e.g. possible crop diseases, pest outbreaks, malnutrition crises) could not be identified until it was too late, meaning the solutions produced could be inefficient. In short, Concern was relying on a costly and time consuming method to gather valuable data. In order to reduce costs, time delays, and improve response times a new data collection process needed to be identified and implemented.

Digital Data Gathering

In 2011, Concern piloted Digital Data Gathering (DDG) in Malawi as part of an Accenture funded Conservation Agriculture project. This involved using mobile handheld devices to survey farmers from land preparation, through seeding, managing their crops and harvesting. To provide an end-to-end solution Concern engaged with a Dublin-based technology company called PSI Mobile. They developed ‘Fusion’, a cloud-based platform that enables the rapid development of mobile data capture applications. Using Fusion, mobile applications can be developed once and deployed simultaneously to a variety of mobile devices (ruggedised smart phones and tablets) with a patented synchronization engine that enables field users to work seamlessly in an online and offline environment.

This application was installed on a mobile device and allowed Concern to deploy a single data collection system to our field offices. DDG offers a collection process which is quicker than paper-based data collection and yields higher quality and more reliable data.

Mohamed Bangura – Agriculture Project Advisor interviewing Mariatu Bzngura - beneficiary at Orgo Farm, Western Area, Sierra Leone for DDG survey piloting on the 2nd August 2012. Photo: Joanna McClatchie

Because the devices are GPS-enabled, valuable mapping and location-specific information can be automatically harvested as field data is inputted and updated. Concern has also sourced technology to enable solar charging of the devices, essential in many places where power is intermittent, or non-existent. The hardware itself is robust and durable, thereby eliminating many of the hazards associated with paper-based surveys such as rain and wind, and is suitable for continued reuse in the field.

The difference DDG has made in the field has been spectacular. A robust, flexible, digital solution, tailor-made for the unique field conditions of each project, helps Concern more accurately and responsively monitor and report on the impacts of its projects. We now use DDG in 18 countries with 50,000 surveys gathered in the past 18 months. DDG has afforded the organisation the tools, technology and skills to collect data in a cost-effective and timely manner, meaning quicker evaluation of the problems identified, and better and more appropriate interventions.

We want to do even more. We work in some of the most complex and volatile regions of the world. And yet, one of our core values is that we are accountable to the people we help. In essence, that means we involve them in all stages of the process; designing, monitoring and evaluating the intervention. When we say we’ll deliver something to someone, we make sure that they can hold us to account if we don’t.

Mobile technology

Mobile technology can play a central role in making us more efficient and more accountable. Our next step is to utilise technology to manage our relationship with project beneficiaries, something we have successfully piloted with 2,700 families (over 10,000 people) in Haiti and are currently using in our response to the Syrian refugee crisis. This ‘Beneficiary Management System’ works just like a traditional CRM tool. We register people to be recipients of aid, capture their data through phones and upload the data instantly to secure databases that we can access through the web from our local office, or our headquarters in Dublin.

We can then track their progress, capture every interaction and add information about distributions, or changes in status; malnutrition rates, cases of illness in the household, or food stocks. We can then accurately map our locations and tailor our response to people’s individual needs, which can be as simple as making sure that a Syrian refugee family gets the correct number of blankets to get through the winter.

Our experts in Dublin can analyse the data almost as soon as it’s gathered and advise on the response, cutting down the need to fly too many people into already crowded offices, and of course saving money. Decisions can be made with real-time information, something that is vital in a complex environment.

Finally, we can then evaluate the effectiveness of our response using strong and reliable evidence. We can also be transparent and accountable, responding to people’s individual queries about how our work is affecting them. At the touch of a button, we can produce reports for donors, governments and the general public.

Most of all, we can ensure that the work we are doing is of the highest standards, something that the world’s poorest and vulnerable people deserve.

For more information visit www.concern.net

About the author

Bernard Gaughan is Head of Information Systems and ICT4D at Concern Worldwide

This article originally appeared in Newstalk Magazine for iPad in November, for more details go here.