1. Dorothy Brewster-Lee Senior Technical Advisor, Tanzania March 30, 2011 ICT4 Development Conference Lusaka, Zambia Improving OVC Programming with Mobile Reporting

2. Project Background OVC PEPFAR TK1 PROJECT Strategic Objectives To increase the capacity of communities, families and orphans to respond effectively to the needs of OVC and their families. To increase the institutional capacity of the local government and CRS Partners to deliver high quality and sustainable OVC interventions. Location 5 regions across Tanzania

3. A Mobile Application for OVC Care Vision Enhance the quality and effectiveness of our OVC programming through mobile applications Mission Quality OVC information captured, synthesized, and made easy to use for decision makers, community volunteers, program managers and service providers

4. Challenges to be addressed through ICT soluti on 1.Real –time data: Long time delays between data collection. reporting and decision making 2.Data quality: Data collection in the field and office incomplete and inaccurate 3.Decision and referral support: CV requiring more technical support relative to referrals. 4.Program quality: Inadequate system volunteer performance monitoring 5.Data storage 6.Inadequate data storage mechanism

5. Moving from M&E paperwork… Phase 1 : Design prototypes Phase 2: Field test & refinement Phase 3 : Train 35 stakeholders and assess Phases 4 &5 (Not completed) : CRS staff field management and roll out with local government

6. ICT Solution Solution: Using telephones for completion of OVC routine management, monitoring and reporting Hardware / platform : Nokia 3100c or 2700c mobile phones with a removal SD memory card, to allow local backups to be taken. Software: The CommCare mobile phone application is written using JavaRosa, the open source API. CommCare HQ, the backend system and reporting tool is written in Python/Django. Vendors: D-Tree & Dimagi

7. ICT Solution Required External Support Phase12345 Total Days IT Specialist USA 55132 15 IT Specialist TZ 1521596 56 Computer Programming 20 1510 75

8. Key Challenges 1.Electronic feedback mechanism for community 2.Budget for on-going maintenance 3.Maintaining IC volunteer team user support mechanism 4.User errors 5.Quality assurance for telephone enabled referrals

9. Lessons Learned Mobile data collection was accepted widely by volunteers Reduced volunteer field time, travel time and travel costs Shorten time for information exchange with project office Increased ability for VC activity monitoring Importance of a community record Requires a technical support mechanism for partners and field implementers Importance of ensuring community and new partner integration through training and equipment.

10. Sustainability On-going technical requirements : CRS server maintenance (post D-Tree) Periodic updating on forms will require programming time Volunteer retention and retraining Sustainability issues: Limited to the life of the funded project. Sustainability of the mobile process will be enhanced by linkage to the national electronic data base and data sharing with other community stakeholders.

11. Summary Our communities maybe far more ready to receive this technology than we are ready to offer it. Care must be taken that the technology actually empowers rather than dis- empowers local stakeholders

12. Thank You!