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Do you sometimes wish you had a better understanding of context in order to respond in a relevant and proportionate manner to your NGO’s needs? Do you find it hard to decide which areas and which beneficiaries need your help the most, or to ensure that your help is effective in the long run? You are aware that there are loads of new tools out there you could use to collect data, but do you know which ones to use and how?
As the first step in any assessment, data collection is crucial to ensure quality data for adequate decision-making. Mobile data collection (MDC) uses smartphones to collect primary data about beneficiary needs, population movement, infrastructure location and assessment. Compared to the traditional paper-based survey approach, a properly designed mobile solution can help you save time, standardize responses, collect diversified information and produce ready-to-share and ready-to-analyse data. In technical terms, setting up a mobile data collection system is getting easier by the day, with great tools available for a growing number of needs. However, surveys, standard operating procedures and logistics can still present a challenge for organizations that have just embarked on MDC.
Learn more about how CartONG can help you with your Mobile Data Collection projects:
You can also visit the Information management and Capacity building pages as both are also necessary if you want your mobile data collection to be useful in the long term.
In April 2019, the German development agency - GIZ - started implementing a new initiative called “Technology Based Adaptation to Climate Change in Rural areas of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan”. This project, which is financed by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) aims at strengthening adaptation measures to climate change in both countries.
CartONG’s involvement in this larger initiative started in February 2021 following a Grant Agreement with GIZ Tajikistan for a project named “Addressing climate change through participatory mapping: using technology and community-based approaches to support climate change adaptation in rural Tajikistan”. This project aimed at strengthening adaptation measures to climate change based on geographic information and open-source technologies and was conducted in collaboration with the Tajik association Little Earth.
Read more »In September 2021, CartONG was asked to support the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI) during the course of several months by drafting a set of technical specifications for an application to collect, store and visualize data that meets ICI’s needs. This support also included advising ICI on suitable options to achieve the said objective.
Two series of webinars for beginners and advanced profiles were organized by CartONG in the fall of 2020 to support the ongoing capacity building of Terre des hommes' field teams in terms of Mobile Data Collection and analysis.
Read more »This activity aimed at supporting the operation in terms of data management, by analyzing their needs, determining recommendations, and helping them build the information management system needed by the operation.
Read more »The RESILAC (Inclusive Economic and Social Recovery of Lake Chad) project and consortium identified during its start-up phase the need to improve the management of its information. CartONG is supporting Groupe URD in charge of the operational M&E system (système de suivi et d'évaluation des réalisations) on the information management component. In 2019, CartONG conducted a diagnostic in information management (all combined technologies) in order to formalize the needs of stakeholders, identify existing constraints and opportunities and propose solution scenarios.
Read more »The support provided by CartONG to FairTrade International in 2021 aims at building two updated forms to monitor the key performance indicators, coded into Kobo in both field languages (French and English), that will fit into the existing online platform (Impact Cloud) that Fairtrade international is using to monitor its West african Cocoa program (WACP). After the conception of the forms, CartONG trained and accompanied 25 staffs to ensure the quality of the data collection.
CartONG is also supporting FairTrade international in its digitalisation process, building a Kobo form that will help the standards & pricing unit to assess the price of Cocoa. CartONG will continue this process in 2022 and also follow-up the deployment and test of this new process.
CartONG worked with Welthungerhilfe to conduct a benchmark of several Mobile Data Collection tools in order to identify the best ones to use at an organizational level. We brought technical and methodological support into this benchmark, especially working on defining, detailing, prioritizing and organizing the requirements as well as cross-checking and testing information provided by suppliers vis-à-vis the selected requirements. The purpose of this support, which continued in the first part of 2021, was to accompany Welthungerhilfe prior to the selection of an MDC tool and to ensure that valuable and reliable information was collected on solutions pre-identified to be the most suitable as per their needs.
To know more about the support provided, please check out our 2020 Annual Report. You can also discover the benchmarking of MDC solutions that was released by CartONG and Welthungerhilfe, with the support of AFD, at the end of this project here.
In 2020, CartONG supported FairTrade New Zealand in their implementation and scale-up of Mobile Data Collection in their areas of intervention, ensuring technical assistance and training remotely. This support also took the form of brainstorming discussions,webinars, form coding, development of analysis tools and a map and remote support for technical difficulties. To know more about the support provided, please check out our 2020 Annual Report.
Furthermore, in 2021, CartONG pursued its technical assistance by providing presentations on different Mobile Data Collection tools to support Fair Trade New-Zealand in their choice of tools, as well as producing a series of map to showcase the different products in the countries of intervention.
This project aimed at supporting the humanitarian aid and international development sector in adapting its Information Management and Monitoring & Evaluation response to the Covid-19 crisis.
As part of this initiative, CartONG provided direct support to NGOs - hotline or coaching - addressing specific data-related requests at headquarters or in the field, as well as a more global support to the sector through the release of technical and methodological guidance (technical briefs, tutorials and tech watch findings) and feedback resources (case studies and lessons learned).
Read more »In 2020, CartONG was solicited by the Voute Nubienne Association for an assessment of the data component of their Monitoring and Evaluation system. A workshop at HQ and different field interviews were therefore run to produce such a document, describing the needs of AVN, a description of the features they wanted in the system in place (as well as the associated constraints, capture modalities, types of users, and data model), and some elements concerning the possible technical scenarios.
To learn more about the support provided by our team, please check out our 2020 Annual Report.
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