1. MOBILE PHONE REGISTRATION ENHANCED BENEFICIARY TRACKING SYSTEM Liberia Agricultural Upgrading Nutrition & Child Health Program Job Milapo & Laura Buback November 19, 2013

2. Outline LAUNCH Program & PM2A Approach Paper Based Beneficiary Registration System Development of Mobile Phone Registration System Description of mobile phone enhanced beneficiary tracking system & benefits Implementation challenges & lessons learned

3. LAUNCH Liberia Agricultural Upgrading Nutrition and Child Health Food For Peace MYAP 2010-2015 Delivering 4 commodities: CSB, pulses, bulgur, fortified vegetable oil Integrating agriculture, nutrition, and education interventions targeting rural households of Bong & Nimba counties

4. PM2A Food Assisted Approach PM2A – registered all Pregnant and Lactating Women (PLWs) and children under 2 years PLW graduating from food rations Children turning 6 months old from PLW becoming eligible for food rations Children graduate from the program at 24 months Focus on First 1,000 Days

5. Original Paper Based Beneficiary Registration Data entry by a separate set of staff Beneficiary Registration A3 paper Desk data verification Data cleaning Data input into dbase

6. Challenges with Paper System  Lost paper forms  Slow data entry/internet speed  Handling data of multiple people caused frequent data errors  Poor supervision of staff in the field  Beneficiaries were waiting months before receiving rations  Missing key opportunity in 1,000 days

7. Improved Time Between Registration and Food Delivery Typical monthly Cycle  July 19 to Aug 18- Beneficiary registration  Aug 18- Download data from Magpi  Aug 21 to 25- Data processing  Aug 25 to 30- Document (i.e. Ration Card) printing  Sept 1 to 5- Document Distribution  Sept 5 to 24- Food distribution  Averages 5 week wait

8. Steps for Developing Mobile System  Consultations with other mobile data users in Liberia  Purchasing phones and Magpi account  Creating and testing electronic forms  Training and field practice of Food Monitors  Complete transition to electronic system, phase out of paper forms except for backup  Ongoing supervision via internet and field visits  Revision of forms when needed

9. Mobile Registration System

10. Mobile Registration & Information Management System

11. Beneficiary Data Management Information System

12. Production of Multiple Documents & Beneficiary Tracking

13. Multiple Reports Generated

14. Mobile Data Collection Benefits  Fast data transfer to lead to faster data processing  Improved supervision  Faster delivery of ration to beneficiaries  Cost effective in every respect  Controls and skips to improve data quality  One time data entry improves data quality and security, limiting parties who handle data

15. Mobile Phone Implementation Challenges  Varied level of phone/computer literacy of staff during trainings  Protection of hardware (rain, theft motorbikes)  Locating hot spots to send data in remote areas with generally poor phone networks

16. Lessons Learned  Mobile phones are becoming an alternative to computers as work tools for field staff  All staff with various levels of computer skills are successfully submitting quality data  Mobile phone is not a “magic bullet” solution  A data processing and tracking beneficiary system must accompany it

17. For more information, email: Job Milapo: jmilapo@acdivoca-liberia.org Laura Buback: laurabuback@gmail.com THANK YOU