Remote monitoring in the time of coronavirus

On June 3,  MERL Tech and CLEAR-Anglophone Africa hosted the second of three virtual events for gLOCAL Evaluation Week. At this event, we heard from Ignacio Del Busto, IDInsight, Janna Rous, Humanitarian Data, and Ayanda Mtanyana, New Leaders, on the topic of remote monitoring.

Data is not always available, and it can be costly to produce. One challenge is generating data cheaply and quickly to meet the needs of decision-makers within the operational constraints that enumerators face. Another is ensuring that the process is high quality and also human-centered, so that we are not simply extracting data. This can be a challenge when there is low connectivity and reach, poor networks capacity and access, and low smartphone access. Enumerator training is also difficult when it must be done remotely, especially if enumerators are new to technology and more accustomed to doing paper-based surveys.