Mobile applications for Tanzania
Expanding service delivery, improving program
management, and strengthening accountability
mechanisms
Technology enables…
Starting in Tanzania
Widespread mobile
networks
Open data
and gov’t
platforms
3% of Tz mobile users
have smart phones;
SMS is ubiquitous
75% of Tanzanians
are covered by
mobile services
Geolocation
tech
Increasingly
functional handsets
GPS and mapping
systems widespread
… transformation along three dimensions
Channel for service delivery
• Agriculture, livelihoods, social safety nets
Tool for project management
• Asset verification, project supervision
Participation in accountability
• Citizen feedback
Mobile applications for Tanzania
SERVICE DELIVERY
Agriculture: Reuters Market Light
• Customized market
Data via SMS
–
–
–
–
Crop prices
Agriculture news
Productivity advise
Weather forecasts
Images from Reuters Market Light, 2010
Livelihoods: SoukTel JobMatch
Jobseeker
Employer
Images from SoukTel, 2010
Social safety nets: Kerio Valley pilot
• M-PESA for secure cash
transfers
• Provided 571 households
in the Rift Valley cash to
purchase 50% of one
month’s minimum
calorific requirements
Image from http://www.newstatesman.com/society/2008/09/mobile-networks-families
Mobile applications for Tanzania
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Asset verification: Afghanistan roads
Images from International Relief and Development, Inc: Human Resources and
Logistics Support Program (IRD-HRLS), September 2010
Asset verification: EQUIP
http://www.advocacynet.org/resource/251
http://www.boston.com/news/world/blog/2009/07/post_9.html
Project supervision: National Solidarity
Program
• Beneficiary verification
through SMS reports
from Community
Councils
• Asset verification
through smart phones
with NSP staff
• Rollout in Bamyan
early 2011
Image from NSP, 2010
Using GPS cameras to monitor EIRP
Image from EIRP, 2010
Mobile applications for Tanzania
ACCOUNTABILITY
MECHANISMS
Urban services: SeeClickFix
Images from http://www.seeclickfix.com/washington/feeds
Mobile applications for Tanzania
Expanding service delivery, improving program
management, and strengthening accountability
mechanisms
Upcoming resources…
By Q3 FY11, on the intranet:
• An RFP database for TTLs with information notes
– Provides examples of implemented systems
• Case studies of appropriate implementations
– Within and outside the World Bank portfolio
• List of staff who can support your activity
• Consultant roster: IT systems implementation, training.
Some considerations for TTLs
• Costs: Handsets, IT systems, telecommunications costs
• Capacity: User training/education, IT management
capacity, training process
• Integration: Connecting old and new data sources and
systems
• Procurement: Design and implement, choice of apps
developers and integrators
• Possible for the Government to consider an integrated
approach to cut costs and accelerate deployment
Social safety nets: Kilimo Salama
• An insurance for Kenyan
farmers
• Insuring their farm
inputs against drought
and excess rain
• Covers farmers who
plant on as little as one
acre
Image from http://www.sciencecodex.com/first_microinsurance_plan_uses_mobile_phones_and_weather_stations_to_shield_kenyas_farmers
Huduma is a tool & Strategy for the
improvement of services based on voices of
citizens.
It provides communities (especially rural
and urban poor) with the possibility of
engaging
the
central
government,
parliamentarians and local authorities: on
service delivery & resource management
based on peoples needs.
Offers government, parliamentarians and
local authorities, a direct feedback &
dialogue avenue on their performance from
the citizenry.
“People first”
Citizen’s can effect meaningful change through
engagement
• Need for an effective means of measuring performance &
enforcing transparency & accountability of service providers
based on the Voices of Citizens.
• Huduma offers an opportunity to amplify unheard voices,
increase public awareness, and by so doing, generate collective
action and bottom up pressure for change.
• Collective action by citizens in the improvement of service
delivery ultimately leads to the enhancement of quality of life
“People first”
• Provides simple
technology/media based tools
and channels to amplifying citizen’s concerns,
displeasures, complaints, suggestions & praises (or good
practices) as a means to hold duty bearers accountable to
their commitments
• purpose of the action is to capture the imagination
and interest of citizens to act on their own to
make a difference, to demand accountability and
better services from service providers through
effective and trusted channels.
“People first”
• It focuses specifically on demanding for services
in the daily lives, e.g. fixthat water point,
fixmyclinic
(medicines,
no
doctors/birth
attendant), fixmyschool (absent teachers,
textbooks, leaking roof).
• It personalizes the demand for services and
empowers the individual citizen to act and turn
information into action. By
increasing the
channels for citizens to demand services, the
action is innovative in its approach in that it
connects the citizens directly with
service providers through evidence as
credible feedback.
HUDUMA: WEB PORAL
• (Geo-tagging) Map with
categories (Health, Water etc
having different dots);
• Timeline indicating
response times;
• Bubble with location names
getting bigger depending on
veracity of problems reported
(needs response);
• Flagging: of actions with
delayed response (red) &
(green) for notable efficiency.
• Budget Layer: tagging project,
concerns with budget
information
HUDUMA: WEB PORAL
HUDUMA: WEB PORAL
Helping Service Providers through Dashboards
• Service provider with ID
and login;
• Incorporates visualization
tools (graphs, red flags,
green flags etc)
• Provider able to pick a
problem and act;
• Provider able to add
comment after fixing a
problem e.g. temporarily
fixed due to budgetary
constraints;
“People first”
• Recognize the unique reality of the our context
(no ctrl-c /ctrl-v). Technology needs to respond
and adapt to the requirements of the people;
• Need to break the mind constructs around
technology as the “magic pill” to solve all
problems;
• Debunk the myth that we are not only
consumers of “information technology” but
also innovators and producers of knowledge;
• Beyond the “wow”: Accessibility, Simplicity &
Utility.
Service Delivery: HUDUMA Model
SMS 3018:
Category:
No medicine, no
nurse at Nyamira
hospital, am tired of
this!
Health, Water, Edu,
Infrastructure
Location
Translation
Please provide location or
more info
VERIFY
Verification,
forwarding
PROCESS:
 Fifty one constituency supervisors were identified,
trained and deployed to fifty one constituencies.

 Identification of five hundred and ten poll watchers
was done and deployment to polling stations.

 Observers were to report incidents via SMS to the
number 3018 and posted on an Ushahidi instance
(website) www.uchaguzi.co.ke .

 The SMS short-code (3018), email
(reports@uchaguzi.co.ke) and twitter hashtag
(#uchaguzi) & #kenyadecides) was widely advertised
on newspapers, radio, web and digital media in malls
and supermarkets.

 “Crowdsourcing” strategy enabled Kenyans to send in
reports on anomalies, positive events through the
above channels.
• Total of 1,523 reports by
monitors & citizen’s;
• 36 out of 40 actionable
reports were amplified and
responded to by the IIEC;
• 794 reports on “everything is
fine”. Highest number of
reports in a category;
• An Non Governmental Organization (NGO)
that aims at strengthening Citizen’s and
Civil Society capacities to hold
governments/private sector accountable
through the Strategic use of
technology.
“People first”
first”
“People
• technology is not a “magic pill” to solve all
• Recognize
problems; the unique reality of the our context
(no ctrl-c /ctrl-v). Technology needs to respond and
• Recognize the unique reality of the our context
adapt
the requirements
of the
(no ctrl-cto/ctrl-v).
Technology needs
to people
respond(esp.
on
andscale-up);
adapt to the requirements of the people (esp.
on scale-up);
• technology is not a “magic pill” to solve all
• Defining
problems;our futures: the future of Africa,
especially in technology cannot be the Present
technology
refusing that
the logic
• Western
Beyond the
“WOW”:context;
Tools recognizes
it hasofto
“catching
up”; , simple & useful.
be accessible
• Beyond the “WOW”: Tools recognizes that it has
to be accessible, simple & useful.
• African’s are not only consumers of
“information” but are innovators and
producers of knowledge;
- Ushahidi
Why ICTs?









Near real time reporting;
Discretion and privacy;
Direct amplification of voices;
Aggregation of data for ease of analysis and report generation;
Transparency in conversations;
Historical /memory;
Cost
Reach /scale
Viral in nature (less training);
•
Improved governments but largely unresponsive to
citizens
•
Services have expanded but lack quality and
accountability;
•
Everyday retail level is what matters most to ordinary
citizens;
•
Information is essential for citizen action
•
Young people are a key demographic
...having access to practical tools, pathways and
examples of how to turn information into action,
ordinary citizens can become the drivers of their own
development and act as co-creators of democracy...
- Twaweza
Mobile Platform?
Country
Total Population
Population btw
15-65
Mobile Subscribers in
millions
Kenya
40,046,566
21,487,118
20
Uganda
33,398,682
15,492,352
8.6
Tanzania
41,892,895
22,212,001
14.7
Rwanda
11,055,976
5,893,986
2.4
50,000,000
40,000,000
Total Population
30,000,000
20,000,000
Population btw
15-65
10,000,000
Mobile Subscribers
(Millions)
0
Kenya
Uganda
Tanzania
Rwanda