FrontlineSMS in Nigeria: My Interview with Emauwa Nelson

Last May, Christine Egger and I represented Social Actions as a finalist in the annual Stockholm Challenge, a competition focused on using information and communications technology (ICT) for development. During the challenge, we met people from 44 countries representing 142 projects that use technology in various and innovative ways.

One of the people we met was Emauwa Nelson from Nigeria, who helped to organize a text-messaging campaign to oversee the 2006 Nigerian elections. Below is a description of the campaign that Emauwa worked on. The summary is followed by the transcript from an email interview I recently conducted with Emauwa.

About the deployment of FrontlineSMS in the 2006 Nigeria Elections

FrontlineSMS is a simple-to-use, free, open source, entry-level text messaging solution for NGOs in the developing world interested in using SMS in their work, but who are confused by the array of options and technical language used in the mobile field, or who are unable to use the majority of current systems due to a lack of internet connectivity in their project geographical areas and the lack of appreciation in the conditions under which they work. With little or no expertise, and within the minimum of time, NGOs can be up and running with a FrontlineSMS hub and begin sending - and receiving - text messages with their constituents.

[...] After approximately 18 months of small-scale trials, FrontlineSMS hit headline news in April 2007 when it was used to help monitor the Nigerian Presidential elections (it was also used in the Philippine elections, although this wasn't so widely reported). Since that time interest in the software for a range of non-profit activities has grown considerably and it is being used in countries such as Afghanistan to provide security alerts to fieldworkers, in Aceh providing market information to hundreds of coffee farmers, and in Pakistan to circumvent government reporting restrictions. This summer the MacArthur Foundation announced their funding of the project - to the tune of $200,000 - which will build a new, platform-independent version of the software, and a new dedicated website for its community of users. The project is due for completion in the Spring of 2008

Interest and anticipation among the community is high, and FrontlineSMS is now seen as 'the' text messaging solution for non-profits and is now regularly cited in industry and academic papers. Its use in the Nigerian elections has spawned a new wave of election monitoring projects - Sierra Leone, Kenya and Ghana are just three of the countries which have since either carried out or are planning mobile election monitoring activities. Finally, the GSM Association have invited kiwanja.net to present a case study on the use of the software in the Nigerian elections at the forthcoming Mobile World Congress in Barcelona (as part of the "Society on the Move" track). The new version of the software is planned for launch at a second GSMA event in Cannes, where kiwanja.net is doing the non-profit keynote address.

Read the full version of this Stockholm Challenge finalist >>

My email interview with Emauwa Nelson

Peter Deitz: Thank you for taking the time to answer a few questions about your work with mobile phones and the election in Nigeria. Can you explain for readers of Social Actions the election coverage campaign that you and your colleagues put together this past year?

EN: The Human Emancipation Lead Project (HELP) Foundation, our parent organization, has associates across the 36 states of Nigeria. These associates were enthusiastic to partake in the Election Monitoring project as associate’s respondents. The project also encouraged them to recruit others in their locality as non-associate respondents. We also had those who learnt of the project on their own, these constituted the independent respondents. The project had coverage in almost all the localities in the country. All these respondents were those who made up the network Mobile Election Monitors.

PD: How long did it take you to put together the campaign? How did you get the message out?

EN: We started sometime in November 2006, effectively about three months went into the project due to certain challenges. We employed mobile phone and the internet, to get messages out. SMS (text messages) from mobile phones as a tool for mass communication was more effective due to the high degree of mobile phone penetration in the country.

PD: What has the response been by the government and election monitoring groups?

EN: Government and election monitoring groups were not very favorably disposed to the project. Our campaign provided an unorthodox but people-based and effective method [to election monitoring] which might present problems to those profiteering in the whole election process.

PD: If I remember correctly, there were just three of you organizing the campaign. It must have been a very empowering experience to witness your ability to mobilize people through mobile phones. What's next for your group? Are you planning additional campaigns?

EN: The three of us were at the directorate level on the Election Monitoring Project. We had others working with us. And yes it was an empowering experience viewing from hindsight and the challenges were enormous. Yes we are working out modalities to launch a follow up on a mobile election monitoring project. We are persuaded that, to sustain the gains of the project must come on stream to strengthen our hard won democracy.

PD: Thank you again for participating in this interview. Do you have any words of advice to activists in other countries, in Africa and elsewhere about how to go about putting together a grassroots mobile phone campaign?

EN: Not exactly an advice, but to encourage social activists that for every social challenge there is a solution if we look hard enough and willing to innovatively apply existing technologies to our social quagmire. And most importantly, start on that project. Do not wait for funding that may never come. You will be happy you did.

PD: Thank you Emauwa! Keep up the great work.