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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mobile Registration System

Mobile Registration & Information Management System

Beneficiary Data Management Information System

Production of Multiple Documents & Beneficiary Tracking

Multiple Reports Generated

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

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

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

For more information, Job Milapo: Laura Buback: THANK YOU