Summary
- Project: Mobile data collection landscape in Sub-Saharan Africa: State of the Art and Opportunities
- Summary: The objective of this study is to construct the State of the Art of mobile data collection activities and identify opportunities leading to the development and deployment of an integrated (set of) innovative solution(s) or service(s)
- Funder:France Telecom-Orange
- Status: The project started in 2012 and ended in January 2013.
- Publications:
- Actors and Use Cases outlines fundamental constituents of any data collection activity, while identifying the key actors, tasks, use cases and requirements that form part of it.
- Multi-Channel Data Collection for Social and Economic Development revisits the panorama of tools available, and explores new trends relating to issues previously outlined in our research.
- Mobile Data Collection in Africa contains the summarized findings of this project. Drawing from the study that has led to the previous two reports, as well as interviews conducted with major actors in the field, it presents the final conclusions of this project.
Outcomes
The Web Foundation has been involved in the mobile data collection space since 2010 when it engaged in conducting a study on the state of the art in
multi-channel data collection. As an extension to our mobile data collection project, the foundation carried out this study to better understand the landscape of Mobile Data Collection activities and opportunities in Sub Saharan Africa. This new research identified the actors in sub Saharan Africa (governments, international organizations, NGOs, businesses, etc.) either engaged or in need of data collection. As a first step it aimed to map and analyze various activities involving the collection of data, constraints and the context in which these activities take place and tools currently in use either on the mobile platform or elsewhere. It then analyzed projects linked to data collection supported by technological tools and compare these with instances of manual data collection, with an aim to analyze the challenges posed by the manual data collection approach. As a second step the study was supported by a field survey of a representative panel of stakeholders, and identified constraints and unresolved issues with the current tools and approaches. It focused on the specific needs of mobile data collection as part of Open Data initiatives.
Challenges
One brake on growth is the lack of data and statistics and the current study aims to investigate the existing solutions and the requirements in terms of data collection.
Approach
International development in Africa is a strong priority for Orange. Thus, Orange has decided to place socio-economic development at the heart of its strategy in emerging countries. Orange believes in innovative win-win solutions for the countries where it is present and in codeveloping these solutions in partnership with local stakeholders. The Orange for Development approach is based on three pillars:
- network coverage and connectivity to increase accessibility for all, including the rural population;
- value-added services targeted to the needs of different population groups in the fields of health, education, agriculture, financial services, mGovernment, designed through local co construction and partnership processes;
- development of the local ICT market and ecosystem through enablers such as start-up incubation and funding, open innovation platforms, co-operation with local universities and technical education institutions.
When developing and managing projects, Orange starts at the local level, by assessing local needs in an inclusive and participative way through partnerships with local actors. Progressive scaling of projects allows to learn from successful initiatives and to validate new business models. Orange's aim is to achieve sustainability, based on long-term partnerships. The study is divided into two phases:
- the first phase identifies categories of actors linked with the data collection activities (one-time or recurring), the context and constraints. This phase also identifies the tools that currently exist.
- the second phase includes the analysis of the adequacy of current tools and needs, and identifies specific issues linked to the use of data collection in Open Data initiatives.
Status
The study was completed in October 2012.
Funding Partners
France Telecom-Orange
