Food Monitoring System (FMS) Madagascar

1. Mobile Services that Empower Vulnerable Communities Food Monitoring System (FMS) Madagascar RANDRIANASOLO Fidy Nirina Commodity Manager CRS.MG March 20, 2013 ICT4D Conference Accra, Ghana

2. Plan of presentation: • Project Background • Context and issues in food management • ICT4D solution • Keys of successes • Challenges • What we learned

3. Project Background GOAL: Reduce food insecurity in 98.500 households by 2014 SO1: Improve the nutrition and health status of 96.000 children under five SO2:Improve livelihood conditions of 82.000 food insecure households SO3:Strengthen resilience of 592 communities Cross – Cutting : Gender, Environmental management, Governance and Partnership Intervention Zones: 592Communities, in 112communes, 21 Districts, and 7 Regions in Madagascar Consortium 04 INGOs: CRS-ADRA-CARE-LOL Implementing Partners: 5 Dioceses, and 15 Social Protection Centers

4. FOOD DISTRIBUTION ACTIVITIES • 27,170 MT food for distribution • Three sectors concerned: Mother and Child Health (MCH) under SO1; Food for Assets (FFA) and Safenet for Urban areas under SO3; • Four types of food for direct distribution Summary for CRS food distribution:

5. Context * Food delivery serving the most vulnerable families in remote and landlocked areas * Worked with Implementing partners (local NGOs) * Committed with local carriers * Supply chain managed from 3 main warehouses to sites * Challenges to monitor the supply chain and quality of program indecisive * Decision making difficult due to the lateness(more than one month) or inaccurate of information from the field * Challenges in communication between main office and field staff

6. ICT4D Solution: Implementation of Food Monitoring System(FMS) with Human Network International (HNI)

7. Keys successes • Roll-out with all staff involved, and gave them capacity in drafting/sending message by SMS • Systematic communicationwith field staff through administrator • Permanente checking of FMS to monitor the movement of food, and distribution • Data analysis to help management team for systematic information and/or decision • Summarize data for editing report required by the donor • Internal Control System

8. Challenges • Datasenders have access reports based on dashboard information • FMS is a data collection system, and needs to be linked with other database used by M&E/ procurement. • For Compliance issues, need to perform end-use checking to confirm that data is really accurate and well documented. Need good supervision

9. Lessons Learned • Service delivery improved : Quick response in case of threat • Canal of communication available with field staff • Quality of reports improved: Involvement of technicians and support team • Appropriate decision made: information available in one day, and detailed for decision making

10. Sustainability strategy • Implementing Partners including local NGO trainedto use it. • Use of the system to collect data in various activities: End-use Checking at recipients level, Warning system for emergency program, Monitoring of local market price, Monitoring of actions in environment issues • Share our experiences on it in large diffusion

11. As a reminder… Food Monitoring System or FMS is a tool based on the use of SMS and internet and that can help to increase efficiency, provide timely and accurate data to improve decision making in term of food distribution: • Increases our capacity to monitor our activities, the quality of report to donors, and the service delivery to beneficiary • Helps for decision making • Enhances the impact in the life of recipients that we serve focus of our mission

12. Thank you!