Establishing a core of M4D Champions in PNG

This is a guest blog by Catherine Highet, former Pacific Manager, GSMA Connected Women.

With mobile services only arriving in Papua New Guinea (PNG) 8 years ago, it is logical that Mobile for Development (M4D) initiatives are still in their early days. When GSMA Connected Women began our Pacific landscaping exercise almost two years ago, we noticed a demand for guidance and best practise in M4D. A common question asked was ‘what is a FrontlineSMS and how do I get one?’ Organisations were interested in using mobile in their programming – but there was little awareness as to how to make it happen. Indeed, often it was the organisational HQ or donor that was pushing for the use of mobile, not the NGO itself.

With this in mind, GSMA Connected Women worked with Dr Amanda Watson, from the Australian government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) Economic and Public Sector Program to design a workshop to help CSOs understand the mobile opportunity, ascertain whether it was the right approach for them, and if so, how to set up a mobile service. Over 11 months, over 70 organisations participated in four two-day workshops in Port Moresby, Madang and the Autonomous Region of Bougainville. Following these workshops, many organisations launched mobile services – the Catholic Bishops Conference established a system to record incidents of accusations of sorcery in the Highlands, National Broadcasting Corporation set up an SMS feedback line and MiBank (formally Nationwide Microbank) have started sending their microloan borrowers repayment reminders.

In order to set up a community of best practice, GSMA Connected Women convened the organisations who had launched, or were on the verge of implementation, to a roundtable discussion in Port Moresby in March 2015. Capitalising on the excellent local research and knowledge developed in the last year, this group of M4D champions have much to offer each other. Toll-free hotlines, partnerships and impact assessment were amongst the topics debated, with recommendations shared and disseminated to the participants through a mailing list, set up for the group. During this workshop several organisations saw an opportunity to work together on key initiatives, and with three HIV/ AIDS organisations focused around the table, coordination is key.

Establishing a local forum not only means sharing successes – but also learning from each other’s challenges; meaning as a community, there is no reason to repeat failures. As a sector, M4D sees a lot of experimentation, piloting and trial-and-error approaches – innovation often goes hand in hand with risk taking. This is all fine and good, but if we are not able to honestly share the valuable lessons we have learned – positive and negative – we are at best inefficient, and at worst wasting taxpayer dollars and squandering the time, patience and energy of those lives we are trying to positively impact.

The PNG M4D Champions have made a positive start at an honest conversation around the realities of integrating mobile in to their programming – what works, what doesn’t, and why. The M4D learning curve may be steep, but it can be made easier so if we are prepared to have an honest dialogue and work collaboratively. As the African Proverb says: “Alone, I go faster. Together, we go further”.

As part of GSMA Connected Women’s M4D work in the Pacific, a toolkit has been developed to improve Pacific women’s awareness and understanding of their mobile phone. To allow the adaption of the toolkit by MNOs, NGOs, or anyone else interested in improving the uptake of mobile in different parts of the world, an adaptation framework has been created as well.Both resources are available to download here.

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