MobileActive.org

This study is the result of a collaboration between Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, UNICEF Malawi, and UNICEF’s Division of Communications Innovations Team in an attempt to use mobile communication devices to facilitate the surveillance of child nutrition in Malawi. As part of the pilot study, health workers at three district growth monitoring clinics were trained to submit child nutrition data via mobile phone SMS (text messages). Using an open-source software platform (RapidSMS), this data was received by a central server and automatically analyzed for indicators of child malnutrition. Health workers received instant feedback messages confirming the information sent and provided additional directions if malnutrition was indicated by the data received. Finally, a website was created to provide the Malawian government and other stakeholders real-time access to this data and its analysis. The report details the pilot study’s findings and outline recommendations for the future use of RapidSMS in Malawi.

This pilot study yielded a number of findings that may be applicable to other development projects using similar mobile phone technology. The results of this particular program included: Significant reduction in data transmission delay compared to Malawi’s current paper-based system. increase in data quality reported by health workers, elimination of the need for time-consuming manual data-entry, increased two-way flow of information between stakeholders at the national government level and health workers in the field, increased system and personnel monitoring capabilities, and elimination of costs related to transporting paper forms and manually entering data.

However, technology can only aid development within a limited scope. The true value of this innovation will be dependent on several other factors, including the integration of RapidSMS into the larger context of health activities and policy making in Malawi; the willingness of the Government of Malawi to take ownership of the platform; the ability to build and develop local technical capacity; and the maintenance of training and monitoring at all levels of participation.