2017 ICT4D Conference

Equal Access International’s media high-quality, local language, media programming has played a significant role in educating and engaging communities for the past 8 years in the Sahel region of Africa. A third of radio listeners in this zone threatened by violent extremism tune in to our weekly radio programs on good governance, peacebuilding, and tolerance, and thousands of journalists and hundreds of media houses have benefited from our institution-strengthening trainings and support. But does listenership translate to real progress towards our target SDG#16: Peace, Justice, and Strong institutions? And how can we get accurate evaluations of impact when faced with the challenges of limited financial resources and the safety concerns raised by in-person surveying in insecure areas?

In this presentation, Ms. Chapman will discuss EA’s design for a pilot randomized controlled trial (RCT) using Interactive Voice Response (IVR), in four countries in Sub-Saharan Africa to assess the effects of community radio under the USAID-funded Voices for Peace project. From using tablet-equipped youth researchers and cloud-based survey management to put a spin on the traditional household survey, to piloting IVR to track activities and solicit feedback, EA has been exploring ways to harness the power, convenience, and low cost of ICT solutions to determine the answers to these questions. By deploying IVR surveys distributed to program participants, to ‘opt-in’ members of the public (e.g. polling past radio listener callers on attitudes and opinions), or even to a random sample of respondents (e.g. to test for listenership rates), EA is able to collect data remotely, frequently, and in real-time. We use periodic in-person monitoring visits and ICT-enabled surveys to triangulate IVR-collected data. EA Program Manager Rebecca Chapman will review challenges and strategies for these approaches, including using metadata to ensure survey data is accurate, high-quality, and in line with randomization protocols, and addressing the tech learning curve with program staff and participants.