Blog Archive

New Pakistan Data Shows Potential, Challenges for Mobile Money

February 15, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Pakistan is a fascinating case in the global geography of digital financial inclusion. The market is dynamic, thanks in large part to the work of the central bank and other regulators to create an enabling environment for deployments. Four products have launched since 2010 and another five are currently in the pilot phase or on the drawing board, according to this recent CGAP report. The market leaders, both of which debuted in 2010, are United Bank Limited’s Omni, and EasyPaisa, run by Telenor Pakistan and Tameer Microfinance Bank. A relatively extensive banking network also holds promise for facilitating liquidity management by agents – often  a key bottleneck to smoothly-running cash-in/cash-out (CICO) networks.

From a demand-side point of view, Pakistan features two key attributes for robust m-money uptake: broad-based mobile phone coverage and use, and a high percentage of the population who is currently unbanked. This came through in data from the Financial Inclusion Tracker Survey (FITS) of Pakistan conducted during May-September 2012, portions of which have just been loaded onto InterMedia’s Mobile Money Data Center. Users can see and analyze results from the Pakistan, Tanzania and Uganda FITS, with results displayed in tabular, graphic and map-based formats. (FITS data from Tanzania and Uganda is highlighted in this blog post by InterMedia’s Michelle Kaffenberger and CGAP’s Claudia McKay).

The Pakistan FITS data is based on interviews with heads of 4,940 households in Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and North West Frontier provinces, which together include 95% of the country’s households. [Continue reading...]

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Measurement Key to Innovation and Success

February 6, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Last week, Bill Gates released his annual open letter on behalf of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and this year his focus was on the value of measurement.

The letter began by noting how important precise measurement was in the development of the steam engine in the early 1800′s.  Today, data collection, monitoring and evaluation are tools that help drive development forward – from reducing poverty to implementing more effective health programs.  In the past 15 years, we have seen dramatic decreases in child and maternal mortality, as well as increases in childhood vaccinations.

As an organization that works to collect, analyze and interpret data for clients we are delighted to see Mr. Gates using his platform to spotlight the need for data and the impact it can have on shaping strategies and eventually outcomes.  At InterMedia, the pursuit of data that drive decision making is the core of who we are.  And we bring fresh thinking and new perspectives to putting data in context.  Our mission is to continue to give clients the data and analysis that helps them understand,
engage and achieve positive impact, often in complex communities.

You can find the full letter from Bill Gates here, and a PDF version here.

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Producing Data to Support Branchless Banking

January 10, 2013 By Leave a Comment

In a new blog post from the World Bank’s CGAP program, learn how InterMedia’s Financial Inclusion Tracker Surveys Project (FITS) is providing critical data for stakeholders in mobile money and financial inclusion. The post is part of a series that will include one by InterMedia’s Michelle Kaffenberger about lessons learned from FITS and our Tanzania Mobile Money Tracker Project.

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PhD Students Analyze InterMedia’s AudienceScapes Data

January 3, 2013 By Leave a Comment

As part of our mission, InterMedia is committed to making the data we collect as widely available as possible on our AudienceScapes Knowledge Center. We do this because we believe that those working on the world’s most pressing problems need data to inform their decision making about solutions. High quality datasets are incredibly valuable for researchers and students to be able to conduct original, empirical research.

Recently a group of PhD students at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced and International Studies (SAIS) analyzed one of the datasets available on AudienceScapes in an effort to contribute to the body of knowledge on how mobile money is being used in Africa. The SAIS students presented their findings to my colleague and me, in an effort to contribute to our ongoing mobile money research efforts on behalf of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The students were able to use the data to identify the segments of Tanzania’s population who use mobile money the least but may have the most to gain from the service. Such segments would be prime target audiences for marketing and other efforts to increase mobile money use. The students concluded that rural residents who send or receive remittances and are below the poverty line are an ideal target group.

Because 72 percent of this subgroup does not speak English, the students pointed out that advertisements, instructions, and the services themselves need to be in Swahili. They also identified radio as the best way to spread word about mobile money, as 76 percent of this subgroup receive news and information from the radio.

They showed that the Tanzanians who are currently most likely to use mobile money are educated, English speakers, spend more than average on their mobile phone use, and “find the internet useful in business.”  In line with previous research, this is a profile of the more affluent, which means getting mobile money in the hands of the rural poor may take some work.

All in all, it was great to see what others can do with our data. Seeing the dissemination of our data at work, providing students the opportunity to learn about data collection and analysis first-hand, and contributing to the body of knowledge on the use of mobile money is an example of InterMedia’s mission at work. As we make more data available through our Financial Inclusion Tracker Surveys Project Data Center, it will be exciting to pursue additional collaboration opportunities, both with Johns Hopkins and other researchers.

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BlackBerry Still Cool, Powerful in Nigeria

November 20, 2012 By 1 Comment

Waiting in Lagos’ crowded domestic airport lounge on route to Abuja, the characteristic ping of the BlackBerry alert sounded out every few minutes with people reaching out into their pockets to check their phones. A smartly dressed Nigerian lady seated beside me was engrossed in a text conversation on her BlackBerry as she smiled silently to herself. As I finally took my seat on the flight, I was joined by a portly Nigerian man with a large briefcase tucked beneath this seat engaging in a loud and animated conversation on one of the phones tucked between his ear and shoulder, whilst he texted on his second phone effortlessly, both BlackBerry devices.  I also noted that the airline crew didn’t bother to request the passengers to turn off their phones before departure, a sign that for many Nigerians, their phones are considered to be an extension of themselves that cannot be disengaged. As a Blackberry user myself, I was happy to see so many fellow “crackberrys” in Nigeria, but in recent times, I had been feeling the impulse to upgrade my phone and join the PA (Post Apple) era.  When I bought my first BlackBerry, a Bold 9900, I felt I’d joined an exclusive club of jet setting executives, ready to take over the world with every BBM. I winced in pain every time I dropped it, mortified that my precious berry baby may have been damaged.  Three years later, my love affair is waning and I’m tempted to drop it under a bus just so that I can have a legitimate excuse to relegate it to a spare tire and buy that much desired iPhone and start instagraming, just like those rich kids on here. A recent New York Times article wrote about the shame and embarrassment of owning the old-school BlackBerry in today’s iPhone and android dominated smartphone world, with users describing it as “a magnet for mockery and derision.”  I related whole heartedly….. Until I realized, at least in Nigeria, that my darn BlackBerry was still pretty cool. Whilst Research in Motion (RIM), the makers of the BlackBerry devices, has been struggling to make sales ground in developed markets, they appear to be covering at least some of it in the developing world.  Nigeria is one of those key markets and RIM estimates that out of Nigerians four million smartphone users, about half are BlackBerry users.  Nigeria has about 88 million active mobile phone subscriptions (more than 50% of population) and it is projected that phone subscription may surpass 128 million by 2014. These numbers present a huge opportunity for the growth in the smartphone industry and RIM has been quick to recognize this and opened up their own retail stores in Nigeria this September to drive further demand for their phones. A wide range of BlackBerry services are being offered by mobile operators at prices, starting at about 1,200 Naira, ($7.60 USD) a month and going up to 3,000 Naira per month ($19.00 USD) depending on the service package. But it’s not really a service that the … [Continue reading...]

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Measurement Is Key to Private Sector Doing Social Good

November 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment

A few weeks ago, I attended a Salzburg Seminar, Value vs. Profit: Recalculating ROI in Financial and Social Terms.  The seminar brought together stakeholders from a wide variety of sectors including the private sector, academia, the non-profit sector, impact investment, and social entrepreneurs. The goal was to step away from our normal work days and engage in high-level conversations about the private sector’s role in achieving social good.  One of the big take-aways was the importance of measurement and evaluation for these efforts to be successful. Many interesting ideas came out of these conversations.  We talked about the role of impact investors  and social entrepreneurs and the barriers to growth that they currently face.  Many impact investors claim that there are insufficient “investment-ready” social enterprises in which to invest.  Social entrepreneurs, on the other hand, claim that there are plenty of successful businesses seeking funding; the problem is that impact investors are too risk averse to invest in them.  Throughout these discussions, the group was divided about how important social impact assessment should be in investor decision making. Other conversations focused on the role of large corporations.  We discussed “shared value” and what it means for corporations to “do good” in the places where they operate.  Many seminar participants believed that there should be ways for institutional investors and regular investors, like you and I, to invest in corporations that are accomplishing social good in addition to providing a financial return. (For more details on the idea, check out this report). However, as a researcher listening and participating in these conversations, a common theme kept emerging.  Without a reliable way to measure and evaluate social impact, the theories fall apart.  As decades of foreign aid programs have shown, good ideas don’t always lead to good outcomes.  In order for institutional and every-day investors to distinguish, and invest in, companies that are achieving some sort of social good, they need an objective source of impact assessments to determine which corporations are actually having positive social impact.  In order for impact investors to select social enterprises that will achieve both a financial bottom line and social bottom line, they must have some way to measure and validate that social outcome. I hope as the players in this new and growing area move forward, they keep in mind the importance of measurement and evaluation.  Quality research can not only demonstrate success, but it can also inform strategies and enable improvements. … [Continue reading...]

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October 23rd – 24th: InterMedia Europe in a consultation workshop with UNICEF

October 24, 2012 By Leave a Comment

  InterMedia Europe presented and discussed with UNICEF and the wider UN family the findings of its recent research entitled Building Support for International Development (BSID). InterMedia was selected due to the rigorous work in this field and UNICEF felt that this expertise could provide insights and tools towards strengthening their own communication and advocacy work. The research built upon the assumption that successful engagement with the public and Policy Makers can steer development policies in a desired direction and help to sustain aid flows. The report provides analytical work on key constituencies and target groups in major donor countries and aims to give a roadmap for communication with key policy actors. The report and workshops conducted by InterMedia drew on survey, focus group and in-depth interview research in five major donor countries. The research goes beyond typical analyses of opinions about aid policies to consider the actual drivers of and impediments to deeper engagement. It is thus a practical guide to interacting with these groups and spurring them toward policy action. InterMedia ran a workshop and presentation for the Communication offices of UN agencies and the UN secretariat, discussing priority issues, key launches, and campaigns. This was followed by a general presentation of the findings of BSID, with defined examples that show what the findings mean for the UN agencies. The discussions has a specific focus on how they communicate with different constituencies in donor and programme countries, and how they can leverage support and build alliances with the public and donor states. Do you have thoughts to share? Idea? You can join the global discussion about effective engagement on global development issues at Audience Scapes. … [Continue reading...]

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InterMedia Hosts Panel Discussion at European Development Days

October 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment

InterMedia is hosting a panel discussion at the European Development Days (EDD) in Brussels on 16th- 17th October. Dr Gerry Power, Klara Debeljak, Michelle Kaffenberger and advisor Andrea Marmolejo will be sharing their research findings on barriers and facilitators of private sector funding in international development. The moderator for this panel discussion will be Awo Ablo from AidsAlliance. The presentation and panel discussion will focus on the research conducted by InterMedia on the views and opinions of key thinkers from the global north and south on the role of private sector funding in international development. The funding outlined the key barriers and facilitators of such funding and outlining future funding models. The research will build upon previous research by InterMedia such as the ‘Building Support for International Development’ study (2012), which highlighted that citizens are disillusioned with the development activities of their governments. Many of the panel discussions will be available via the European Development Days Live Stream throughout the day on 16th- 17th October. EDD is organised by the European Commission as an international affairs and development cooperation event, with a global reach that attracts representatives from over 1,500 organisations from the development community. The event has been seen as a launch point for the ideas and interventions of political leaders and world-renowned authorities on development. Previous attendees have included Desmond Tutu, Kofi Annan, Jacques Chirac, and Morgan Tsvangirai. EDD is a collaborative platform that allows thousands of development advocates, decision-makers and practitioners to network and develop ideas and best practices. InterMedia looks forward to sharing and discussing our research findings in the collaborative environment of EDD 2012. … [Continue reading...]

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InterMedia Attends European Development Days

October 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment

InterMedia is hosting a panel discussion at the European Development Days (EDD) in Brussels on 16th- 17th October. Dr Gerry Power, Klara Debeljak, Michelle Kaffenberger and advisor Andrea Marmolejo will be sharing their research findings on barriers and facilitators of private sector funding in international development. The moderator for this panel discussion will be Awo Ablo from AidsAlliance. The presentation and panel discussion will focus on the research conducted by InterMedia on the views and opinions of key thinkers from the global north and south on the role of private sector funding in international development. The funding outlined the key barriers and facilitators of such funding and outlining future funding models. The research will build upon previous research by InterMedia such as the ‘Building Support for International Development’ study (2012), which highlighted that citizens are disillusioned with the development activities of their governments. Many of the panel discussions will be available via the European Development Days Live Stream  throughout the day on  16th- 17th October. EDD is organised by the European Commission as an international affairs and development cooperation event, with a global reach that attracts representatives from over 1,500 organisations from the development community. The event has been seen as a launch point for the ideas and interventions of political leaders and world-renowned authorities on development. Previous attendees have included Desmond Tutu, Kofi Annan, Jacques Chirac, and Morgan Tsvangirai. EDD is a collaborative platform that allows thousands of development advocates, decision-makers and practitioners to network and develop ideas and best practices.  InterMedia looks forward to sharing and discussing our research findings in the collaborative environment of EDD 2012. Do you have thoughts to share? Ideas? You can join the global discussion about effective engagement on global development issues at Audience Scapes. … [Continue reading...]

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