Data collection tools designed to overcome traditional sampling challenges for rural, informal, and vulnerable populations.
Vulnerable, informal, and rural populations can present significant challenges for researchers using traditional data collection techniques. These barriers can include:
Failure to address these barriers can have a reinforcing detrimental effect on solution and programme design.
- ‘Hard-to-reach’ are left out of the data collection phase when performing needs assessments and are not integrated in subsequent design processes.
- Failure to include ‘hard-to-reach’ populations in the design process means that solutions often focus on exclusionary channels of delivery.
- Poorly designed indicators, which do not evaluate programme impact among ‘hard-to-reach’ populations, can affirm exclusionary programme impact
We co-created Sauti Collect with hard-to-reach populations to produce a data collection tool for scale, reach, and impact
Use ubiquitous technologies like USSD, SMS, and WhatsApp to survey communities, which are accessible with any kind of phone, at anytime, and anywhere. Sauti Collect enables researchers and solution designers to build custom mobile surveys, collect data from verified sample groups, and monitor realtime collection progress.
Full Customisation
Design USSD, SMS, and WhatApp-based platforms to target unique project needs:
- Conduct accurate and cost-effective remote mobile data collection with hard-to- reach communities.
- Ensure respondent anonymity when inquiring about sensitive topics.
- Reduce economic barriers to participation by sending surveys that are free to respondents and receivable by phones without airtime credit.
- Survey with multiple language options, including English, Kiswahili, Luganda, Kinyarwanda, Lukiga, Samia, and Somali.
Human-Centred Design
Put users at the centre of platform design and implementation to address barriers to scaled innovation adoption:
- Easily design custom surveys with skip logic and validation for required questions.
- Use real-time data to monitor key metrics and performance indicators.
- Automatically deposit and track incentives for survey completion via airtime credit and mobile money.
- Rapidly receive data in your preferred formats for exporting, analysis, and visualisation.
Integrated Solutions
Reduce distribution costs and enhance scale by deploying information solutions with proven potential for integration or ‘bundling’ with other services, such as:
- Rapidly deploy surveys and receive real-time responses for baseline studies, rapid monitoring, and impact evaluations.
- Reach individuals and businesses engaged in trade across East Africa.
- Segment audiences and tailor surveys to target key respondents by gender, age, location, and other custom criteria.
Ready for rapid deployment
Sauti’s custom-built data collection tools are available for rapid deployment across Sub-Saharan Africa.
- Benin
- Burundi
- Cameroon
- Ghana
- Guinea
- Kenya
- Malawi
- Mali
- Niger
- Nigeria
- Rwanda
- Senegal
- South Africa
- Tanzania
- Togo
- Uganda
- Zambia
Discover your Sauti Collect use case
Sauti East Africa, in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme, has produced a report comparing business activities of youth and female-owned businesses before & after-COVID-19. This report presents a quantitative understanding of the trends and patterns in resilience and innovation by informal cross-border trade (ICBT) in East Africa.