Outline

1. Brief Organizational Descriptions

2. Situations Over View of Pastoralist Communities
3. Why ICT based technology employed
4. Advantages of designed IVR system
5. How does it Operate
6. Functions of the technology
7. IVR system monitoring mechanism
8. Financial and Knowledge Partners
 1. Brief Organizational Profile*
 Wako Gutu Foundation (WGF) is an Ethiopian development
organization working on improving the living condition of hard to
reach pastoral communities in Ethiopia focusing in
 Improving food and nutrition security;
 Improving basic social service delivery like Health, Education and
Water Supply;
 Promoting social cohesion, coexistence and social reconciliation in
conflict prone areas;
 Promoting Natural Resource management and Environmental
Protection;
 Strengthening community preparedness/resilience to disaster;
 2. Situations of Pastoralist Communities
 Pastoral communities are facing complex manmade and natural
phenomena affecting their living situation.
 Climate change impacts are natural factors affecting the livelihood
of Pastoral communities.
 Manmade factors influencing Livelihood of Pastoral Communities
are:
 Unfavorable policy environment;
 Resource based conflicts and;
 Illegal trade routs
 Cont…
The aforementioned factors brought about change in livelihood of pastoral
communities.
 Due to climate change induced drought, their livelihood shifted
to crop production as a coping mechanism;
 Lack of knowledge and limited experience in crop production are
major concerns.
 Extension services are poorly available in the area.
 High level of illiteracy affects adoption and use of extension
services
This is Why MEAL & HEALTH Project is Initiated by WGF in Pastoral and
agro-pastoral area of Ethiopia
3. Why ICT based technology employed
 Opportunity of telecommunication coverage expansion
 Wide use of Mobile phone in all over the country including
Pastoralists
 Identification of appropriate technology is a pre-condition for
effectiveness of such initiative.
 The selection of technology based up on;
 Easy to operate and use friendly;
 Accessibility and affordability
 User centeredness and culturally valid and;
 Sustainability of services;
 Considering the above criteria Mobile phone enabled
livelihood through Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
technology is selected
4. Advantages of designed IVR system
1. Accessibility:- reached from any where via telephone network
2. Standard cell phone set:- no specialized telephone set is
required.
3. Availability:- the system is available 24/7, 365 dys yr
4. Easy to use:- no need to have high technical skill
5. Live information/Timelessness: real time Info.
6. Multilingual:- Support multiple languages
7. Scalability:- handle many simultaneous calls at a time
8. Generate Revenue
9. Voice Message
10. Multiple functions
5. How the system operates
Agriculture
S
Rain
6335/6 After greeting fed/Irrigation
guide her/him to
the desired field Health
of information MCH, Nutrition,
Opinion Hygiene & FP

Early Warning
Disease/pest
outbreak

A user get options to Need

Expertise opinions on drop questions on any based/Demand
questions subject that she/he driven Info.
requires
6. Function of Mobile Enabled Information (MEIDS)
1.Agriculture advisory services;
2.Information on Health Extension Services;
3.EW and Disaster risk Management Information;
4.Demand driven and need based information services
6.1. Agriculture information Dissemination
Push Information
 Agronomic practice in
moisture stress agro-ecology.
 Agricultural Extension
packages relevant to pastoral
communities
 Market linkage for
agricultural input supply
Pull Information
 Adoption of new agricultural
technologies
 Seasonal Crop protection
 Production cycles in line with
Market orientation
 Skills in Preparation and use
of organic fertilizer and;
 Integrated Past management
practices
6.2. EW and Disaster risk Management Information
 Regular Climate forecast information produced by National
Meteorological Agency (NMA);
 Seasonal Early warning information produced by humanitarian
Agencies;
 Pre and Post harvest assessment findings;
 Human and/or livestock disease out break information;
 Crop pest or disease outbreak alerts;
 National/regional disaster preparedness and respond mechanisms;
6.3. Information on Health Extension Services
Push Information Pull Information
1. Health Extension package on 1. Preference of Family Planning
MCH tools;
2. Family Planning and 2. Referral and linkage to service
Children’s welfare centres
3. Preventive Health Services 3. Counselling on reproductive
4. Environmental and Personal health behaviour
Hygiene Practices 4. Youth friendly reproductive
5. Harmful Mal practices health services
5. Use of personal hygiene tools
 Farmers union input/output demand Information Dissemination
(2mil. outgoing calls per day)
 ID on Adoption and use of new technologies
 Traceability study and data collection on impacts of new
Technologies
 Agricultural input suppliers product/market
 Community based Disaster risk surveillance
 GIS based resources mapping and interpretation
 7. System monitoring mechanism
The IVR system has a dashboard that will provide administrators with
real-time statistics of the users calling into the system.
The IVR dash board provides:
• Information on calls per region and users registered per language
• Additional data on requested information
• Number of simultaneous calls (1mil. Outgoing/Incoming calls per day)
• Allow users to record and upload voice recordings directly from the
system.
• Provide administrators with detailed logs/reports on the status of
messages.
• Send messages to selected individuals through the ‘Manual Push’
feature
8. Financial and technical Partners
Financial Partners Partners on Technology
Ethio Telecom

Protestant Agency for Development and

Diakonie

Technical Partners
Local and International
Federal and Regional Government
Humanitarian Organizations
Institutions

Universities and Research Institutions

THANK YOU!