ECA-FAO DATA COLLECTION SYSTEM USING MOBILE DEVICES OVERVIEW Meriem Ait Ouyahia Statistician, African Centre for Statistics, ECA Fabio Grita System Support Officer, Statistics Division, FAO

BACKGROUND INFORMATION FAO and UNECA are implementing a project to assist the governments of Cameroon, The Gambia and Zimbabwe to establish a surveillance network and monitoring system to collect and analyze food market prices. The system is designed to exploit the potentials of mobile devices to monitor key markets on regular basis.

OBJECTIVE The overall goal is to set up a system that would strengthen the capacity of national agencies in collecting and disseminating key data on food prices. This data is expected to be instrumental for monitoring price volatility and analyze trends having potential negative impacts on food security and human welfare

ACTIONS Present the system to relevant national agencies Discuss potential uses and benefits of the system, taking into account existing data collection and analysis systems Roll-out the developed system to the interested countries Train national staff in collecting data using the mobile devices

BENEFITS Reduce paper-based surveys Reduce time and cost of data input; store data directly in databases Reduce the probability of error from data input processes and consequently reduce the need for data cleaning and management Potentially increase data security and confidentiality Enable real-time monitoring of key indicators

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MOBILE APP (1) Multiple devices can be used to conduct a survey No Internet connection is required while conducting surveys: results are temporarily stored locally and uploaded when the connection is available Use of geocoding and GPS to identify locations (e.g. closest market) when the survey is conducted.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MOBILE APP (2) Built with Open Source technology Ability of adding/removing markets, commodities, measurement units, etc. Geocoding and mapping functionalities to locate cities, markets and vendors Embedded metadata information (complying with SDMX specifications) to facilitate data exchange

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE WEBSITE Built using open-source technology (FENIX platform) Real-time acquisition and display of data transmitted by the app On-the-fly calculations of averages, sums, measurement units conversions Grouping of data using markets, commodities, etc. Extensible to add more functionalities, perform calculations using algorithms and include new pages

Set the work environment Add a new market Enter market name and use GPS or the map to store its location TECHNOLOGY USED

Enter price and quantity for the varieties you need and press “Next” to send data to the database or “Save” to temporary save your data in the smartphone Select your market and vendor TECHNOLOGY USED

Data sent via smartphone is stored in a database managed by FENIX, which renders data in real time as maps, tables and charts (accessible at the following address: FENIX calculates the daily average of the prices on-the-fly whenever more than one value per commodity/variety is entered for the same day TECHNOLOGY USED

COMMITMENTS Maintain the software application based on the FENIX platform (FAO-ECA) Ensure that adequate training to national staff is delivered (FAO-ECA) Provide a limited number of mobile devices for the pilot phase (FAO-ECA) Allocate adequate staff time to carry out the activities (Gov. of Gambia) Make provision for increasing the number of mobile devices and for the running costs such as vehicles, fuel, sim cards, etc. (Gov. of Gambia)

SUSTAINABILITY The same software platform is used for several applications at FAO, ECA and other partners. All of them are investing in this technology, and therefore maintenance and development costs are shared All components of the price are open-source and therefore most of them are maintained by the open source community and can be used and upgraded at no cost A roadmap should be define to progressively release responsibility to the Government of Gambia, not only for collection and maintenance of data but also for future development of the mobile app and web application