1. UNIQUE IDENTIFIERS
AND DATA COLLECTION
TECHNIQUES
Information Communication Technology for
Development

2. Unique Identifiers
 Unique identifiers (UI) refers to techniques for
confirming/establishing identities of beneficiaries
 UI’s are useful in the case of;
 Decentralized service delivery
 Especially when there are multiple partners
 Targeted programs
 Benefits accrue to select beneficiaries
 Contexts with high levels of corruption or
mismanagement

3. Advantages of UI’s
 Streamlining service
delivery and
implementation
 Effective data management
and analysis
 Facilitating Monitoring and
evaluation of programmes
 Reducing inclusion and
exclusion errors
 Ensuring transparency

4. Applications of UIs
 Case study 1: USAID-funded Drug Demand Reduction Program (DDRP), Central
Asia
 UI Type: Individual code
 First two letters of mother’s first name
 First two letters of father’s first name
 Gender (single letter M/F or number 1/2)
 Year of birth (last two digits)
 Advantages
 Low probability of duplication of id's
 Low start up costs
 Limitations
 Not very robust in the context of polygamous marriages- In cultures using patronymic naming
systems and/or polygamous marriages, the likelihood of duplicates arose.
 Application: Tracking of individuals
 BRAC programmes: MNCH or BEP

5. Applications of UIs (cont.)
 Case study 2: Maternal Heath care, India
 UI type: Smart cards and Photo id-Beneficiaries
(Expecting mothers) receive a photo ID and
smart card.
 Cards are scanned to record services received with
acknowledgement from the beneficiaries and to
report any customer feedback.
 Advantages
 This new system determines effectiveness -more
emphasis on ensuring that feedback is coming directly
from beneficiaries.
 Determine gaps in the service delivery process
 Limitations
 High start up and maintenance costs
 Application: Centralized Service Delivery Centre’s
 BRAC programmes:: BRAC health facilities (Shasthya
Kendros)

6. Applications of UIs (cont.)
 Case study 3: Flood Emergency Cash Transfer Project (FECT) Project,
Pakistan
 UI type: Biometric UI cards
 The beneficiaries were enrolled in the program through biometric verification with
a national ID database and cash grants were disbursed through debit cards by
engaging the private banking sector.
 Advantages
 Avoiding inclusion and exclusion errors
 Limitations
 Tedious and time consuming process of verification and
 High costs
 Application: Identity of beneficiaries is important especially in cases of targeted
programmes
 BRAC programmes: Microfinance programmes

7. Frontline Data Collection
 Frontline data collection technologies improve data
management and effectiveness
 Reduce time spent between data collection and data entry, i.e.
automate data aggregation
 Reduce errors in data entry
 Types of Frontline data collection strategies
 PDA- Personal Data Assistant (laptops or tablets)- electronic forms
 Mobile phone technology
 Eelectronic forms: containing numeric fields and multiple-choice
menus,
 SMS: where users enter delimited text messages according to printed
cue cards,
 Voice: where users call an operator and dictate the data in real-time.
 Optical mark recognition- automatically extracting expected data
from noticeable fields, Such as checkboxes and fill-in fields, on
printed forms.

8. Applications of Frontline Data
Collection techniques
 Case study 1: Child malnutrition Programme, India
 Type of Technology: CommCare, a low-cost mobile phone data collection
solution (electronic form)
 Advantages:
 Improved data management and effectiveness in comparison to paper based
system
 User motivation high- overcoming literacy limitations
 Adaptable to complex infrastructure challenges- phone can be charged in 1.5
hours, internet connectivity not required
 Limitation
 Unsupervised use of phones
 Network connectivity required
 Application: complex infrastructure challenges and large scale interventions
 BRAC programmes: Health, Microfinance and Education

9. Applications of Frontline Data
Collection techniques (cont.)
 Case Study 2: Mifapro CCT programme,
Guatemala
 Type of technology: Episurveyor a Java-based
application (electronic forms)
 Advantages
 Cost saving-“freemium” model, offering a free
basic version
 Access to real time data- cloud-computing
application
 User friendly
 Real-time visualization of the survey responses
 Limitations
 Some resistance by interviewees not familiar
with mobile phone technology
 Applications: Real time data is of import
 BRAC programmes:

10. Applications of Frontline Data
Collection techniques (cont.)
 Case Study 3: Community Health Programme, India
 Type of Technology: Voice interface with Mobile technology
 Advantages:
 Lower error rate as compared to electronic and SMS based applications
 Lower literacy requirements
 Flexibility in data gathering
 Decreased training time
 Limitations
 Cost considerations:
 Cost of live operator- however in labour surplus contexts the increased cost of a human
operator can be compensated by the decreased costs in other overheads
 Voice call costs often higher than the cost of SMS
 Application: Literacy of data collector is low and cost is a key concern
 BRAC programmes: Health programmes such as MNCH

11. Other technologies for Frontline Data Collection
Technology Programme Country
Digital camera- An image of the completed survey will be
captured by a digital camera and securely and privately stored
onto a memory card. A software program will interpret the
image capture and report the brightness values of to a .csv
table, to then be imported into an excel database where it is
managed and sorted
Midwifery training programme Haiti
PDA- Palm Pilot m500 series; Palm Inc., Santa Clara, CA)
programmed using Pendragon Forms software version 3.1
Clinical surveillance activity Gabon
PDA- Psion Organiser II XP hand-held computer, Malaria morbidity survey Gambia
Mobile technology-Open data kit currently provides four
tools to this end: Collect, Aggregate, Voice, and Build. Collect
is a mobile platform that renders application logic and
supports the manipulation of data.
Treatment protocols for treatable
diseases
Tanzania
Mobile technology EpiHandy tool, a mobile health data
collection and record access program enabled by PDAs,
medical records Uganda
Mobile technology-iFormBuilder An iOS mobile data
collection platform that features an application that requires
no paper or connection and is available worldwide.
Agriculture-Distribution of seed
vouchers to beneficiaries
Central African
republic