Building Mobile Applications to Help Alleviate Poverty

Country: 
Uganda
Location: 
A sample of 406 telecommunications users was drawn from four parts of the country – north (Lira), east (Mbale and Tororo), west (Mbarara) and central (Kampala)
Client: 
Grameen Foundation
Duration: 
6 Months
Start Date: 
January, 2008
Completion Date: 
July, 2008
Project Value: 
USD100000
Consultants: 
F. F. Tusubira
Nora K. Mulira
Ali Ndiwalana

This work was carried out as part of the Gamos team. The assignment comprised of a number of needs assessment activities of the Grameen AppLab programme to establish an understanding of the needs of rural communities to inform the design and development of applications. The core activity was a questionnaire based survey of individual users drawn from across the country that was carried out by individuals of the KCL team. Other activities included desk research as well as stakeholder interviews.

Project Activities: 
  • Desk research (with Gamos) – DICTS helped identify previous work done in Uganda (or East Africa) relating to the role and application of ICTs in development. This included scanning of markets for existing solutions using ICTs and the delivery of e-content. Obtained national statistics for sampling design. Gamos searched multilateral sources of information (e.g. World Bank)
  • High level stakeholder consultation. Identified and talked to individuals in institutions belonging to the ICT industry in Uganda, and in civil society institutions engaged in relevant sectors - notably health, HIV/AIDS, reproductive health, education, economic growth and business development (e.g. microfinance), governance. Conducted interviews to better understand the information needs of the poor and excluded as well as the realities of the policy environment
  • Participated in key stakeholder workshop – organised by Grameen
  • Conducted community consultations that helped explore information needs through discussions with community members; made use of existing self help groups (including Village Phone).
  • Household survey – contributed to design of survey instrument
  • Household survey – managed and administered survey, and entered data into electronic format.
  • Contributed to analysis and production of a final report
  • Participated in Final workshop summit