Vanuatu Report Garners Press

May 15, 2013 By Leave a Comment

InterMedia’s recently released a report, the Citizen Access to Information in Vanuatu study, has garnered several mentions in the press.  The report assess the information needs and media and communication habits of Vanuatu citizens, as well as attitudes towards development issues, in order to help development, media, and policy organizations better understand community needs and optimize their citizen engagement strategies in Vanuatu.

The Guardian Cites Groundbreaking North Korea Report

May 2, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Despite facing a risk of forced hard labor, North Koreans “near the Chinese or South Korean border surreptitiously tune in to foreign radio and television broadcasts,” according to a recent story by The Guardian.  The article goes on to describe the ongoing struggle North Koreans face in receiving information from the outside world.  The article quotes from InterMedia’s groundbreaking report on North Korea, A Quiet Opening: North Koreans in a Changing Media Environment.“  The report describes how North Koreans are absorbing more information from outside their border than ever before.

Click here to read the full report.

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Mobile Research to be Presented at ESOMAR

April 19, 2013 By Leave a Comment

We are speaking at ESOMAR 3D Digital Dimensions 2013New media, including mobile phones, are increasingly drawing young people in the developing world into discussions about social, political and other issues. InterMedia researchers Ana Mirzoyants and Aneta Guenova have been invited to present on this topic at the ESOMAR 3D Digital Dimensions Conference this June in Boston, Mass.

From research in seven developing countries, Mirzoyants and Guenova found that mobile phones and social networking sites make young people more responsive to the world around them, and, in times of crisis, more politically or socially active. This transition does not happen overnight, but it is gradually happening, especially in more urban areas.

Click on the banner for more information about this conference.

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Mobile Money Use & Gender: Less Disparity than Might be Expected

April 18, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Gender often plays a key role in the uptake and use of new technologies in developing countries, with women lagging behind men.  InterMedia’s Tanzania Mobile Money Tracker study however has shown that, while this is true for mobile money in Tanzania to an extent, poverty and urban/rural status are much stronger determinants to uptake and use than is gender.

For example, those above the poverty line are 24 percentage points more likely to use mobile money than those below the poverty line and urban residents are 22 percentage points more likely to use than rural residents. The gender gap is less than a third of these; men are only 7 percentage points more likely to use mobile money than women.

Mobile Money Use by Demographics

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Taking the demographic segmentation one step deeper, urban men above the poverty line and urban women above the poverty line are almost equally likely to use mobile money, at 69 and 65 percent respectively.

Mobile Money Use among Urban Men and Women above the Poverty Line

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The gap between urban women above the poverty line and urban women below the poverty however is more than 20 percentage points (65 vs. 44 percent usage).  This indicates poverty is a much bigger barrier than gender.  Put another way, these findings show that mobile money use varies more within each gender than it does between the genders.

Mobile Money Use among Women in Urban Areas, by Poverty Status

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Similar findings appear in rural areas.  There, men are 10 percentage points more likely to use mobile money than women, but across both genders those above the poverty line are 20 percentage points more likely to use than those below the poverty line.

These findings indicate a need to think carefully about the role that gender plays in the uptake of new technologies.  The impact of gender is sure to vary in different contexts and countries.  For stakeholders specifically aiming for gender equality in technology use, closing the gap between men and women’s mobile money use remains a valid endeavor in need of attention.  However, to even out mobile money use among different demographic groups, targeting individuals below the poverty line and rural residents is likely to be most effective.

 

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How Do Embassies Use Twitter?

April 12, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Jeanette Gaida recently published an interesting blog piece on the use of Twitter among embassies in Washington, D.C.  The piece explores 50 embassies in Washington, D.C., and the interactions among them and among their followers.

The post, found on The George Washington University’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication (IPDGC) blog, was written in collaboration with InterMedia’s Dr. Ali Fisher.

Read the full blog here.

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InterMedia, University of Nairobi Join Forces to Study Financial Inclusion

April 4, 2013 By Leave a Comment
MOU Signing

InterMedia is joining forces with the Population Studies and Research Institute (PSRI) of the University of Nairobi to further explore financial inclusion amongst poor populations in the region and contribute to building the capacity of research infrastructure in East Africa. InterMedia and the University of Nairobi signed a joint memorandum of understanding (MOU) at the University of Nairobi’s Vice Chancellor’s office on March 28. Through this partnership, PSRI students will have the opportunity to intern with InterMedia’s Nairobi office, do hands-on field research and learn from some of InterMedia’s top experts. PSRI students will be working on the Financial Inclusion Tracker Survey (FITS) project.  Funded through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, FITS fills knowledge gaps about trends in and social impact of mobile money in the developing world, looking at Uganda, Pakistan and Tanzania. After Safaricom's launch of M-PESA in Kenya half a decade ago,  mobile money gained prominence as a safe, convenient and affordable way to manage money, especially for people at the bottom of the pyramid. Today, mobile money services are available in some 70 countries. But there is still much to learn about how to successfully expand access and use, especially to the most poor and vulnerable. "It is a chance for students to take what they have learned from PSRI and apply it to real-life situations in the fast-developing field of mobile money," said Dr. Ana Mirzoyants-McKnight, FITS Project Director and the Head of InterMedia-Africa office. "InterMedia brings a strong history of research in digital finance, health issues, audience research and impact evaluation across the African continent." continued Dr. Mirzoyants-McKnight.  "This partnership allows us to execute a broader research agenda, and harness expertise from one of the top research institutions in the region.  It is an opportunity for students to learn, and for InterMedia to help shape the next generation of researchers." "This partnership will enhance our capacity and participation in impact evaluation and will provide our students with opportunities to gain practical experience in a wide variety of contexts," said Prof. Lawrence Ikamari, PSRI Director. "PSRI students have the reputation of being some of the regions brightest, and we are excited to begin this partnership,” added Dr. Mirzoyants. We welcome Loice J. Cherwon and Kaaria Lucy Mukami as the first interns in this joint venture. … [Continue reading...]

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InterMedia, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Joint Blog Post on Mobile Money in Pakistan

April 4, 2013 By Leave a Comment

InterMedia's Peter Goldstein and Dan Radcliffe from the Financial Services for the Poor program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation wrote a joint blog post for GSMA on mobile money in Pakistan. The post explores the question: Why aren't more Pakistani mobile money users opening accounts?  Click here to read the full blog. … [Continue reading...]

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Mobile Money is on an Upward Trajectory in Tanzania

March 28, 2013 By Leave a Comment
graph

A year-long study by InterMedia into the uptake and use of mobile money in Tanzania reveals mobile money use is on the rise. Forty-five percent of Tanzanian adults now use mobile money, up from 31 percent just three months earlier.  Just as noteworthy: The increase in mobile money use occurred across almost all demographic segments, including urban and rural residents, men and women, those above and below the poverty line, and all age groups.  Much of the growth may have been due to an aggressive marketing and promotional campaign by mobile money provider, Airtel, which included free mobile money transfers. These findings are from the fourth, and latest wave, of the Tanzania Mobile Money Tracker study, published earlier this month.  With the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, InterMedia conducted the study to track trends in the awareness, uptake and use of mobile money in Tanzania and help identify the drivers and barriers to expanding use. As of October 2012 when the wave four data was collected, awareness of mobile money had reached saturation in Tanzania, with 99 percent of the population able to name or recognize at least one mobile money brand. Airtel led the way in wave four with recognition rising from 74 percent to 92 percent of Tanzanians. Airtel also had the largest rise in mobile money use of any mobile money operator, jumping from 3 percent market share to 13 percent (although Vodacom’s M-PESA is still by far the market leader with 65 percent market share). Mobile Money Use by Brand: Provider Used Most Frequently by Active Users If Airtel’s marketing campaign was the cause of much of the increased recognition and use of Airtel Money, it will be worth watching to see if use continues at the same rate once transfer fees return. During the study, we gained valuable insight into the interactions between mobile money agents and their customers through mystery shopping exercises.  The exercises, in which researchers pose as potential customers, also allowed us to evaluate the level of agents’ customer service. In these exercises, researchers visited mobile money agents, tried to complete a transaction, and reported back on their experience.  The exercises showed that while most agents were “friendly,” most did not have the knowledge or information necessary to meet the customers’ needs. Most agents also failed to explain the services that are available through mobile money.  Additional findings on the customer-agent relationship can be found here. In addition to shortcomings among agents, a lack of understanding among both nonusers and mobile money users emerged as a clear limitation on mobile money’s use.  Among nonusers, not knowing how to use mobile money is the second most common reason given for not using the services.  Users reported feeling they do not understand mobile money well enough to take full advantage of the services. More than a quarter of mobile money users reported … [Continue reading...]

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Data Volunteering with International Organizations at the World Bank

March 25, 2013 By 1 Comment

During the weekend of March 16-17, 130 eager data volunteers and dozens of World Bank, U.N. Development Programme, and U.N. Global Pulse staffers convened at the World Bank in Washington, D.C., to take part in the DataKind  #Data4Good DataDive. These organizations volunteered their data and staff and volunteers donated their time to tackle two main challenges: 1) Find new and innovative ways to measure poverty; and 2) sift through World Bank procurement and program data to identify possible techniques to detect fraud and corruption. Simple, right? In the lead-up to the event at the bank, DataKind and its volunteer data ambassadors (myself among them) helped prepare data for eight primary projects listed here in this hackpad. I had the opportunity to lead a team Web scraping  (a software technique for extracting data from websites) food prices and consumption data from around the world.  We quickly learned that groups like the U.N. Global Pulse have also been looking at this same idea.  #TeamNdizi (ndizi means banana in Swahili), as we called ourselves, first started with a Web Scraping 101 tutorial for six team members where we learned to scrape using crowdsourced banana prices on ScraperWiki.  Team Ndizi then split into two subunits, one looking for food price and consumption data in Africa, particularly Kenya, and the other unit looking at rice prices in Indonesia.  For a few more visuals and links to the scrapers and data, see our github page: https://github.com/mjrich/ndizi. What would success look like for our team?  The senior World Bank economist we worked with hoped for a “definitive chart” that showed this approach to gathering food prices might bear fruit (pun intended). To do so, we plotted the Indonesia rice data over time.  The Indonesia team first grabbed price data from the Carrefour Indonesia supermarket website and Twitter account, then used the internet archives to scrape historical Carrefour Indonesia webpages and combined these data with the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) rice prices.  In doing so, we were able to produce the chart below showing the price increase in two brands of rice up to the present day.  Certainly more research and data preparation is necessary, but in 12 hours we were able to demonstrate the possibility of creating a commodity price leading indicator from open data: The next step will be to work with the 100,000 data points of daily commodities prices covering 1,095 days that were scraped from mfarm and compare them to FAO Kenya and World Bank global prices.  These datasets are loaded here for future analysis. By the end of the event, both volunteers and international organization representatives seemed equally shocked at the amount of ground covered and the potential for next steps.  Here’s a great blog post from the World Bank recapping the event and a series of two more posts about other projects that took place during the event. Beyond the utility of these … [Continue reading...]

What Is ‘Disruptive Metrics’?

March 20, 2013 By 1 Comment
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Metrics. Evidence. Key Performance Indicators. They are a requirement for any program, organization or policy trying to demonstrate value and impact. Done well, they can advance strategy and positive change. Done poorly, they can throw an organization off course, miss opportunities to demonstrate impact, and/or simply be ignored. With multiple sources of data and multiple ways to capture that data, the risk that metrics are off-course or reacting to rather than driving strategy has never been greater. Organizations that cling to research approaches, evaluation plans and key performance indicators because “that’s what has always been done” may be overlooking new insights, new meaning and ultimately new ways of achieving and demonstrating effectiveness. Our aim in this blog and through our research and evaluation consulting every day is to be both provocative and pragmatic about metrics, what they mean and how they matter. We think about how disruptive technologies and trends are requiring us to look at, understand and use data in new ways. We apply this thinking as we integrate tried and true methods with new ways of doing things. We strive to develop new research approaches and measures that create a truer and fuller picture of what is happening so that our clients can focus on what matters, adjust their strategies and take credit for their successes. We take every opportunity in our work to turn questions on their heads, to incorporate new and traditional methods of data collection, and to synthesize and map information in order to more clearly show connections and relationships — all in the effort to help us deepen our understanding and focus on what really matters, so that metrics continue to have real meaning. … [Continue reading...]

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