MERL Tech DC 2018

Over 225 million pastoralists across Africa rely on livestock as their primary source of economic, social, and physical well-being. With dramatic changes in climate and land use, finding pasture within traditional grazing areas has become high-risk and resource intensive. To address this issue, in 2013 PCI created paper-based community grazing maps overlaid with current vegetation conditions using satellite imagery. In partnership with Fordham University, PCI is conducting a randomized control trial (RCT) to rigorously evaluate the impact that the maps have on pastoralist’s ability to find pasture, improve their herd condition and value, and reduce the need for emergency aid. In pursuit of sustainability and scalability, PCI started transitioning away from paper map distribution in 2016, to a mobile application called AfriScout. While the traditional evaluation approach has yielded valuable data to help drive the digital development of AfriScout, the mobile app opens up a whole new world of using data science and data analytics to mine user generated data and continue to monitor and evaluate the impact of the app.

This session is for people who want to learn how an iNGO is transitioning from a traditional M&E approach to a new approach that combines analyzing user-generated data with survey data to monitor and evaluation a digital social enterprise. We will present on the methodology used to evaluate the maps, the pivot to AfriScout, and how PCI will use platform generated data to continuously evaluate and improve the application and demonstrate impact. We hope the presentation will lead to a lively debate about evaluating social innovations and the future of M&E.