Mobile technology is transforming the way advocacy, development and relief organisations accomplish their missions according to the results of a global survey and a series of case studies in the report Wireless Technology for Social Change: Trends in NGO Mobile Use, released today in the UK by the United Nations Foundation and The Vodafone Group Foundation.
Findings from the report show that 25 per cent of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) think that mobile technology has revolutionized the way their organisation or project works and 31 per cent of NGO workers would find it difficult to do their work without mobile technology.*
The report focuses on 11 case studies from the areas of global public health, humanitarian assistance and environmental conservation and illustrates emerging trends in the use of mobile technology to affect social change.
Seventy-four per cent of NGO workers use mobile technology to reach audiences which were previously difficult or impossible to reach. This finding is examined in a UN World Food Programme case study about text messaging being used in an innovative way to alert Iraqi refugees in Syria that food is available for collection from distribution centres.
“The goal of this publication is to look at mobile technology from the point of view of the user. We're not delving into how the technology works. The interesting thing about mobile is that this is a technology that is already being widely used and is widely understood,” said Katrin Verclas, co-author of the report. “This is not a device that is foreign, unlike computers for a lot of people. They already understand the benefit. They've already swallowed that fact, gotten past that barrier. So, what's left to do is sell the benefit for a particular mission. Some programmes have been successful in this regard.”
For example, in the area of humanitarian assistance, Oxfam GB and the Kenyan umbrella group PeaceNet created a text messaging ‘nerve centre’ that collected alerts about violent outbreaks during the recent civil unrest and mobilized local ‘peace committees’. The project served as a critical tool for conflict management and prevention by providing a hub of real-time information about actual and planned attacks between rival ethnic and political groups.
The report’s findings will be discussed tonight at Chatham House, London, by the report’s co-author Katrin Verclas; Jane Cocking from Oxfam; Danny Quah from London School of Economics; Simon Lewis, Vodafone Group Foundation and Malcolm Bruce, MP.
"The statistics showing the amazingly rapid spread of mobile phones in developing countries speak for themselves; the value of this report is in the detail on how NGOs working in many different countries and contexts are able to use this tool to make their work as effective as possible,” said Diane Coyle, Associate, Chatham House. “I hope the report will be widely read to spread ideas on how best to use the potential of mobile technology for development."
Simon Lewis, Corporate Affairs Director, Vodafone added: “The Vodafone Group Foundation, along with The United Nations Foundation, is committed to tackling humanitarian challenges through the use of technology. The organisations in this report prove what can be achieved through the innovative use of existing mobile technology. With further advances in mobile, the possibilities of harnessing this for further social change are boundless.”
Wireless Technology for Social Change: Trends in NGO Mobile Use was written by Sheila Kinkade (ShareIdea.org) and Katrin Verclas (MobileActive.org) and commissioned by the United Nations Foundation-Vodafone Group Foundation Technology Partnership. The report, the second in the Access to Communications Publication Series, produces studies that give governments, NGOs and the private sector research and recommendations on how to use technology and telecom tools to effectively address some of the world’s toughest challenges.
Notes to editors
The full report, as well as access to more complete survey data and high-resolution photographs accompanying case study material are available at
http://www.unfoundation.org/vodafone/communications_publication_series.asp.
*A global web-based survey of NGO mobile technology use was developed by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research and distributed via the email networks of eight partner groups reaching a geographically and thematically diverse group of NGOs: Idealist, InterAction, International Youth Foundation, MobileActive.org, New Tactics in Human Rights, One World, SANGONeT, and ShareIdeas. Responses were collected between 10 December 2007 and 13 January 2008 and generated 560 completed responses from NGO representatives throughout the world.
About the UN Foundation and The Vodafone Group Foundation Partnership
The UN Foundation-Vodafone Group Foundation Partnership strives to be the leading public-private alliance using strategic technology programmes to strengthen the UN’s humanitarian efforts worldwide. Created in October 2005, with a £10 million commitment from The Vodafone Group Foundation and a £5 million contribution from the UN Foundation, the Partnership has three core commitments: (1) to develop rapid response telecoms teams to aid disaster relief; (2) to develop health data systems that improve access to health data thereby helping to combat disease; and (3) to promote research and innovative initiatives using technology as an agent and tool for international development. Further information can be found at: www.unfoundation.org/vodafone.
For more information please contact:
Michelle Curley
Four Communications
+44 (0)870 626 9084
Michelle.curley@fourcommunications.com
Helen Brockett
The Vodafone Group Foundation
+44 (0)7500 032886
Helen.brockett@vodafone.com
Adele Waugaman
United Nations Foundation
+1 202 778 1635
awaugaman@unfoundation.org