World Food Programme uses mobile-based tools to guide programming in 3 countries, benefitting up to 2.6 million people

Collecting data from a larger number of people can be costly and slow. This is true particularly in the agricultural sector, as some rural areas are hard to reach. Therefore, after an initial research phase, the World Food Programme (WFP), the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) and CCAFS are now piloting the use of voice-calls over mobile phones to collect nutrition information from women and mothers. This innovative approach allows for faster and less costly data collection including from remote areas.

As the WFP will continue using this innovation for monitoring, it can be expected that the 2.6 million people assisted by the program will benefit from this faster method of gathering information. The innovation is broadly applicable and can be used beyond collecting data on women and children's nutrition. For instance, data on agricultural production and perceptions of climate change can be collected in the same way, and in turn used in GHG accounting or food security monitoring.