The Transformation of Data Collection Methods

Data collection methods have evolved significantly, transitioning from traditional paper-based surveys and in-person interviews to more sophisticated, technology-driven approaches. This evolution is driven by the need to overcome challenges such as high costs, time constraints, and accessibility issues in remote or hard to reach areas.

Modern data collection leverages mobile and internet technologies, offering several advantages:

1. Broader Reach: Mobile-based methods, including SMS, voice calls (CATI), and internet-based surveys (such as mobile web, WhatsApp, and email surveys), enable access to broader audiences, including remote or marginalized communities.
2. Speed and Efficiency: Digital tools facilitate quicker data collection and processing, allowing for real-time insights and faster decision-making. GeoPoll has deployed fast surveys even in times of natural disaster or conflict, with real-time data flowing in to help stakeholders act fast.
3. Cost-Effectiveness: Reduced logistical and operational costs make large-scale surveys more feasible and frequent. You can run surveys in multiple countries from the comfort of a single office.

Improving Data Quality through Technological Innovations

The accuracy and reliability of data are crucial. Technological advancements play a key role in enhancing the quality of data collected:

1. Real-Time Data Monitoring: Technology platforms such as GeoPoll’s allow for immediate data tracking and analysis, ensuring timely identification and resolution of discrepancies.
2. Automated Quality Controls: Algorithms can efficiently detect and correct errors, enhancing data integrity.
3. Geo-Location Verification: All data privacy elements considered, geolocation technology confirms the geographical location of respondents (and interviewers in CAPI Surveys), adding a layer of authenticity to the data.

Data Processing and Reporting: Turning Data into Insights

Transforming vast datasets into actionable insights is a critical step in the decision-making process. Advanced data processing systems are capable of handling large volumes of data, converting them into meaningful information through:

• Analytical Tools:  Data analysis software helps identify trends, patterns, and correlations fast.
• Visualization Techniques: Data visualization tools, including charts, graphs, and infographics, aid in presenting complex data in an understandable format.
• Customized Reporting: Tailored reports meet specific needs and objectives, ranging from comprehensive analytical reports to concise summaries.

The bottom line – Better technology + better data = better decisions

The future of decision-making is increasingly reliant on the synergy between technology and quality data. This trend is not just about collecting information; it’s about equipping decision-makers with accurate, comprehensive, and timely insights.

The continuous advancement in data collection and analysis technologies promises more nuanced, rapid, and cost-effective research methods. This evolution is crucial for understanding complex global phenomena and making informed decisions in various sectors, from development and humanitarian aid to market research and public policy.

At GeoPoll, we have created a unique technology platform that handles the entire research process, from questionnaire development to reporting. The result is an unprecedented speed at scale, high-quality data, and reporting outputs that truly drive decisions. Contact us to learn more about our platform and survey research capabilities.

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Let’s explore some key trends to watch in 2024 and beyond:

1. AI-powered Insights: From Data to Wisdom

Imagine a world where surveys aren’t just a collection of data points, but a treasure trove of insights generated by artificial intelligence (AI). AI and machine learning will play a central role in streamlining data analysis, uncovering hidden patterns, and even suggesting follow-up questions based on real-time responses. This will enable researchers to extract the full potential of their data, leading to more informed decisions and a deeper understanding of complex issues.

2. Micro-surveys: Capturing the Fleeting Moment

With a lot on people’s plates, gone are the days of lengthy questionnaires. In today’s fast-paced world, micro-surveys are taking center stage. These short, targeted surveys are ideal for capturing real-time opinions, preferences, and reactions in the moment. They are becoming increasingly important in gauging customer satisfaction during a service interaction, understanding fleeting trends, or gathering feedback on ever-changing situations – all through concise surveys.

3. Mobile-first Design: Surveys in Your Pocket

With mobile phone penetration skyrocketing, it’s no surprise that mobile-first survey design is here to stay, and will get even more essential with time. At GeoPoll, we have seen the rise of mobile surveys over the last decade, with more surveys completed via our mobile modes every year. This means optimizing questionnaires for smaller screens, incorporating interactive elements like geolocation and touch-friendly interfaces, and leveraging the power of mobile notifications for timely survey delivery. The result? A seamless and engaging survey experience that reaches respondents wherever they are.

4. Beyond the Checkbox: A Symphony of Data Collection

The future of surveys is not confined to multiple-choice questions. Prepare to be dazzled by multimedia elements like images, videos, and even augmented reality (AR) woven into the survey experience. This will enhance engagement and allow respondents to express themselves in more nuanced ways. Imagine capturing a respondent’s emotional response to a product image like we do with our Mobile Web, WhatsApp, and App surveys or gathering spatial data through a geolocated survey – the possibilities are endless.

5. Ethics and Transparency: Building Trust in the Data Age

As data collection becomes more sophisticated, ethical considerations and transparency will be even more paramount. Survey research must address issues like data privacy, bias mitigation, and ensuring informed consent from participants. Building trust will be essential for ensuring the validity and legitimacy of research findings.

6. Longitudinal Studies: Unveiling Long-Term Trends

Gone are the days of research snapshots; the future lies in understanding the long-term story. Longitudinal studies track respondents over time, offering invaluable insights into how trends evolve, interventions impact communities, and attitudes and behaviors shift over years and even decades. An example would be tracing food security and hunger indicators on a region within a country over several years such as the WFP Hunger Map, charting the changing demographics and needs of a refugee population over time or tracking daily media audiences. These longitudinal studies, with their rich data tapestry, hold the power to inform long-term planning and predict future scenarios. Advanced analytics tools then allow researchers to visualize trends and identify emerging patterns in real-time, react swiftly to evolving situations, and make informed decisions based on the latest data.

7. The Human Touch: A Guiding Light in the Age of Technology:

While technology is undoubtedly transforming the landscape of survey research, it’s crucial to remember the irreplaceable value of the human touch. Skilled researchers are the architects of effective surveys, the interpreters of complex data, and the translators of insights into actionable recommendations. But the human touch goes beyond just technical skills; it’s about building trust with participants, ensuring ethical practices, and respecting cultural sensitivities. In an age of automation and algorithms, it’s the human touch that ensures research remains grounded in empathy, responsibility, and ultimately, the betterment of humanity.

The Final Word

These are not just trends but a glimpse into the future of research, where technology empowers participation, data reveals long-term narratives and the human touch guides us toward a more informed world. By embracing these shifts and staying true to the core values of research, we can unlock the full potential of data to understand the world around us, make informed decisions, solve complex problems, and build a brighter future for all.

At GeoPoll, we are already participating in this data revolution with our deep understanding of diverse cultures, talented team, innovative research solutions, and a commitment to responsible research. Get in touch to explore the possibilities for your research.

The post 7 Trends in Survey Research to Watch in 2024 and Beyond appeared first on GeoPoll.

This article outlines some of our highlights for 2022.

Innovative Product Releases

One of the Core Values of GeoPoll is continuous improvement. While GeoPoll colleagues endeavor to grow as individuals and teams continually, the company also takes deliberate steps on a day-to-day basis to improve our mandate to provide reliable data to move essential decisions for your clients, partners and the world. In 2022, we launched great products and massively improved others, including:

The GeoPoll Attention Landscape

Media consumption has changed. Digital channels are both challenging and becoming entangled with traditional TV, radio, and print media. To reliably measure this intersection, there needed a change in media and audience measurement models. This need birthed the GeoPoll Attention Landscape! Bringing a new perspective to media insights, the GeoPoll Attention Landscape model maps out the touchpoints across both traditional and new media and goes beyond audience numbers to explore how and why they capture our attention. Get more details from our Namibia and Lesotho case study here.

A new and improved GeoPoll Audience Measurement (GAM 3.0)

Over the years, GeoPoll has established itself as the premier provider of media audience measurement through the GeoPoll Audience Measurement(GAM) subscription service. To further accentuate this and to provide advertisers, media houses, agencies, and other users with better media insights for conclusive decision-making in line with the changing media landscape, GeoPoll launched the new and improved GAM 3.0. with improved methodologies for both television and radio ratings and new measurement for new (digital) media and print. See what changed here.

A new GeoPoll Interviewer Platform

In 2022, everyone on GeoPoll collaborated to produce one of the best interviewer platforms in the world, a culmination of many years of experience conducting CATI and CAPI surveys in emerging markets. Our new and improved Interviewer platform for telephonic interviews (CATI)  and face-to-face interviews (CAPI) was a complete revamp of the mobile application at the center of the ecosystem. It also introduced a one-of-its-kind quality control mechanism, and a new portal for partners to quickly and accurately monitor the progress of projects. Read about it here.

Reports

Apart from the hundreds of client research projects we run every year, including 2022, GeoPoll also seeks to bring data sense into the issues that touch the world in various degrees through our own studies. To not miss any of our reports, bookmark the GeoPoll blog, and subscribe to our monthly newsletter, which gives you a front-seat view of the reports, opinion pieces and research tips from our experience. 2022 produced a record number of such studies and here are a few highlights.

Daily data from Ukraine following Russia’s Invasion

The event that most defined 2022 was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in the last week of February. Just a week later, GeoPoll went to the field to collect data the assess the situation on the ground in Ukraine and assist in the targeting of humanitarian relief. We published the first report on March 11, 2022, and have been running daily surveys in the country ever since. Our latest update (November) summarizes some of the highlights of the trends we are observing, which include a myriad of highs and lows and what we think about it all. See the aggregated results and daily trends here.

The Kenya Media Establishment Survey

Since our last media establishment survey for Kenya in 2015, the media landscape has changed drastically. While the conversation then was about TV migration from analog to digital, the talk now is about another kind of digital – the internet and the smartphone – and the massive transformation it has caused the media industry. GeoPoll’s Kenya Media Establishment Survey 2022 is the country’s most comprehensive media study, covering all media touchpoints, establishing audiences for each media and diving into details such as the intensity of engagement, the channels used, and how each channel is consumed, among others. You can learn more about it here and request a copy of whatever data points you need.

The Cost of Living Crisis Study

The aforementioned  Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the lingering effects of the coronavirus pandemic and climate change implications, among others, combined to create what the UN called the largest cost-of-living crisis of the 21st century. To assess the situation and understand how people around the world were experiencing and coping with the cost-of-living crisis, GeoPoll conducted a survey in August 2022 in 9 countries from across Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. We published the Global Cost of Living Crisis Report here, and GeoPoll experts from around the world got together to discuss their experiences and possible solutions on this podcast.

The World Cup Report

A welcome reprieve from the tough happenings of the year was the most significant global sporting showpiece – the FIFA World Cup. Held in Qatar during Winter for the first time in history, the World Cup was unique in several ways – including hugely surprising results. GeoPoll conducted this study in five countries in Africa to assess interest in football and the World Cup, viewership habits and plans, gambling, and the level of support both for global countries and African countries. We published the report here.

Climate Change in the Caribbean

Climate change is a real threat to humankind. Rising seas, hotter temperatures, and more frequent and extreme weather events pose a particular threat to coastal areas and island nations. As coastal flooding and erosion increase, Small Island Developing States (SIDS), like those in the Caribbean, project to be some of the most highly impacted and fastest displaced populations across the globe. GeoPoll conducted this survey across 13 countries in the Caribbean to assess the level of concern among residents on climate change, the perceptions of the crisis and suggested solutions.

Exploring Parents’ Perceptions of the Malaria Vaccine

A ground-breaking malaria vaccine was approved by the WHO, potentially changing the face of children’s health throughout Africa. To explore parents’ thoughts and reactions to this potentially revolutionary vaccine, GeoPoll conducted a survey in several high-burden malaria countries to help determine awareness of the new vaccine, general parent perceptions of routine childhood vaccines, intent to vaccinate for malaria and reasons for hesitancy and if COVID-19 vaccines had any impact on parent perceptions regarding the malaria vaccine. Read the report here.

Perceptions on GMO foods in Kenya

In 2022, the new Government of Kenya lifted a decade-long ban on the cultivation and importation of genetically modified food products (GMOs), a move that split opinions, with politicians and pressure groups clashing with biotech scientists over the safety of consuming GMO foods. GeoPoll conducted a Rapid Survey at the beginning of November to assess citizen awareness of GMOs, their perceptions on the government approval, information gaps, and concerns that need to be addressed, along with changes compared to a similar survey GeoPoll had conducted with the Gates Foundation in 2014. Here’s the report.

The Africa MSME Survey

Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) play a significant role in most economies, particularly in countries classified as ‘emerging’ and ‘developing.’ GeoPoll collaborated with Africa 118 on a joint survey to assess the health and outlook of MSMEs in Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa. You can read the report here – and look forward to the annual report in the first quarter of 2023!

Brand Africa

Another annual research project we conduct is the Brand Africa 100, which has consistently been the most comprehensive brand rank list in the continent for the last decade. 2022’s edition was the twelfth and covered 29 countries spread across all the regions of Africa. Read the report here.

Conferences came back

We had missed conferences during the height of the pandemic. In 2022, people could move around and meet face-to-face again, which meant more opportunities for GeoPoll team members to share their knowledge and learn from peers.  From MSRA events and the East Africa Humanitarian Summit in Nairobi, Devex World, Global Development Forum, and Society For International Development (SID-US) in Washington DC to International Social and Behavior Change Communication Summit in Marrakech, the Big 5 Summit and PAMRO in Cape Town, GeoPoll participated in in-person events in over 20 cities in 2022!

At the World Association for Public Opinion Research (WAPOR) 2022 conference in Dubai, GeoPoll became a founder member of the WAPOR SSA Chapter. See you at conferences in 2023!

Have a great 2023, will you?

The post 2022 Year in Review: Industry Leading Innovation and Landmark Reports appeared first on GeoPoll.

Still, there is a lot of confusion about what it actually means.

This article discusses big data, why everyone is talking about it, and its comparison to research-based data.

What is big data?

Big data is a combination of structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data collected by organizations that can be mined for information and used in machine learning projects, predictive modeling, and other advanced analytics applications.

Oracle describes big data as data that contains greater variety, arriving in increasing volumes and with more velocity (the three Vs).

According to Tech Target, big data doesn’t equate to any specific volume of data. Still, big data deployments typically involve terabytes, petabytes, and even exabytes of data created and collected over time.

How do big data and research data compare and contrast?

Whereas big data can tell us what has happened in the past and can make predictions on future events, in itself, it cannot explain “why” it happened. Research data that is more targeted to a specific question and can also include qualitative data can answer “why,” which is a fundamental difference between the two types of research.

Actually, research data can form an essential part of further enriching data sets that contribute to big data.

Rather than getting caught up in the semantics of the differences and which is more effective, the more important question is not how much data you have but what you do with it. The value of information obtained from the two methods of data collection and analysis (whether from large volumes of unstructured data – big data or research-based data) determines the most effective one for your business.

If we were to focus on the desired outcome of a data-gathering project by its ability to drive decision-making, then we see that both big data and data from research are just a means through which we get an outcome. Various other considerations must be made for each, such as the availability of the data in the first place, big data analysis capabilities, and the cost of marketing research, among others.

While research aims at solving particular research questions, big data tries to make sense of the information available where the topic/research question may or might not be in context, ergo sometimes the need to have ‘influencers’ to drive the topic.

Big data takes a lot of time to get output from, while research could be scoped to a particular time, reducing the time it takes to get the insights needed to make a business decision.

What does big data mean for market research data?

The question as to whether big data will render data from direct market research obsolete continues to elicit colossal debate in the research industry. In the developed world, big data is, in many aspects, providing insights that, traditionally, only market research could. In emerging markets, there may not be as much data to prompt the concern about the continued primary role and need for market research.

To answer this question, one must first contemplate the role of primary or secondary research in today’s world. The role of market research is to understand consumer behavior and perception and measure the consumption of goods or services. Or, simply put, the “hows” and the “whys.”

Without context and connections, big data is useless. It is simply megabytes of data that need to be compiled and manipulated to answer a question.

Humans are irrational, and more often than not, why they behave in a certain way or make the decisions they make cannot be explained or even predicted. No amount of machine intelligence through big data analytics will be able to answer the “whys.”

Big data can’t replace the need for market research. Instead, the two complement each other, as each has its purpose and benefits that, if used correctly, can effectively understand consumer behavior.

So, which is more important?

Organizations still strive to understand and respond to shifts in demand and consumer preferences. By having a clear understanding of the capabilities and challenges of big data and research data, businesses can effectively plan their expenditure either on tools to collect and analyze their own big data or go the primary research route by engaging a research agency such as GeoPoll to get a complete picture of consumer behavior and preferences.

Talk to us about your data and research needs.

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Statistica reports that as of the fourth quarter of 2020, Kenya recorded the highest share of WhatsApp users, with 97% of the country’s digital population using the mobile messaging app monthly. South Africa (96%) and Nigeria (95%) followed, highlighting the significance of WhatsApp, especially in Africa.

Why it is so Popular

• Cost – For starters, WhatsApp is free to download and use. Then, WhatsApp uses data connectivity to exchange messages and phone calls, which is considerably cheaper than regular SMS and phone calls.
• Rich messaging – Unlike SMS, WhatsApp users can send messages of whatever length without counting words and leeway to send multimedia content such as images, videos, and audio.
• Ease of use – WhatsApp is so easy to use, people with most levels of literacy can use the app comfortably. All one needs is a smartphone and a phone number.
• Device accessibility – Being platform agnostic, WhatsApp can be on almost any device. The broad availability of the software is undoubtedly a significant factor in its popularity.
• Its own popularity – The fact that so many people use WhatsApp fuels its popularity even further as users will generally use Apps that the people they interact with as using.

Using WhatsApp to Conduct Surveys

Owing to the position WhatsApp holds in many people’s day-to-day lives worldwide, it presents a realistic means to conduct survey research. There are several reasons for this:

• Multimedia Questions – Provides the flexibility for administering complex surveys in rich multimedia such as audio, video, gifs, pictures, and animations. You can send pictures or videos for respondents to answer questions on and even get photos and recordings back from respondents.
• ­Low Costs – WhatsApp utilizes less data bandwidth making it cheaper for respondents to take surveys. The researcher also doesn’t incur direct mobile charges, making WhatsApp an affordable platform even for clients.
• ­Response Rates – Given that WhatsApp is one of the most widely used apps globally, WhatsApp surveys typically have higher engagement rates and are markedly faster to run.
• ­Flexible Question Types – WhatsApp works with multiple question types, such as matrix or grid questions with skip logic and randomization. ­WhatsApp also has no restrictions on question character limits and can utilize more extended question types.

­GeoPoll WhatsApp Surveys

GeoPoll uses WhatsApp to conduct surveys in two main ways:

• Mobile-Based Market Research Online Communities (MROCs) – Using WhatsApp Groups to gather valuable qualitative data to understand target audiences better. MROCs are focus groups where GeoPoll places respondents in moderated groups to discuss the topic under research.
• WhatsApp Survey Mode – Recently, GeoPoll fully integrated WhatsApp as a survey mode. We send automatic WhatsApp message prompts that are coded to allow for two-way interaction with the respondent. This way, GeoPoll can track progress remotely in real-time, providing more operational control over projects and ensuring high-quality data. We can send the surveys to the client’s database or GeoPoll’s own WhatsApp panel.

To learn more about our WhatsApp solutions and how they can be implemented with your project, please contact us.

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In this article, we touch on a few highlights from GeoPoll’s 2021:

The Ongoing Impact of COVID-19 and Vaccine Acceptance

The collective hope at the beginning of the year was that life would regain normalcy in 2021 after a tumultuous, pandemic-ridden 2020. With the vaccines being rolled out and people learning how to cope with the virus, a bit of normalcy returned, but the impacts continue to be felt. In 2021, we took every opportunity to investigate the ongoing effects of coronavirus on people in several countries. We released a major tracker report on the ongoing impact of COVID-19 in Sub-Saharan Africa and a more extensive report covering Africa, Asia and Latin America with more follow-up surveys in between.

Gender Equality in Africa

To mark International Women’s Day, GeoPoll conducted a study on gender equality in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa in the first week of March 2021. The survey gathered data on realities and perceptions about International Women’s Day, gender equality in various spheres of life such as the workplace and school, gender discrimination and harassment, actions regarding gender inequality, and hopes for gender equality in the future. We released the report here and had a highly informative GeoPoll Talks discussion about the position of women in Africa, which you can listen to here.

Brand Africa 100 – The Top Brands in Africa 2021

GeoPoll once again partnered with Brand Africa and others on the 2021 Brand Africa 100, an annual list of the top brands in Africa overall and in select key sectors. This year, the report was launched on Africa Day, as usual, and through seven virtual events in seven countries – Uganda, Lesotho, Botswana, Namibia, Nigeria, Morocco, and Cote D’Ivoire.

2020 Tokyo Olympics Consumer Interest, Viewing Intent, and Betting Behaviors

The 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics was unique in that it happened in 2021, after being postponed from the previous year and the events took place entirely behind closed doors in the Japanese capital, which had declared a state of emergency due to the pandemic. GeoPoll conducted a survey in nine countries to gather information on planned viewing habits, betting activities, and brand/ad awareness surrounding the Olympics. It was the first time GeoPoll conducted a major study in some of the countries involved, further showing our versatility and ability to reach uncharted waters.

Conflict in Afghanistan and Ethiopia

GeoPoll is known for conducting surveys remotely, even in areas that are hard to reach due to natural calamities, disease, and war. In 2021, following the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan and the takeover by the Taliban, leading to a dire humanitarian crisis, GeoPoll managed to remotely conduct surveys in the country to collect on the ground data on concerns, humanitarian needs, access to essentials, and food security among other topics. GeoPoll also conducted a survey in Pakistan to assess Pakistanis’ perceptions of the US troop withdrawal and the resulting influx of Afghan refugees.

In other news, the Ethiopia conflict started in Northern Ethiopia (which we covered at the end of 2020) and expanded into a nationwide crisis that continues to threaten the peace and wellbeing of one of Eastern Africa’s powerhouses. GeoPoll conducted another survey in Ethiopia in December, 2021 to assess the situation on the ground and recently released the report.

GeoPoll Started Conducting Surveys via WhatsApp

WhatsApp is, factually, the top mobile app in the world. It is the most widely used messaging app globally and has become an essential part of most smartphone users’ day-to-day life. As such, it is safe to assume that WhatsApp is a great way to reach many people for a variety of reasons, including for surveys. WhatsApp is a relatively inexpensive communication method, familiar to many people, and can involve rich content such as audio, video and pictorial messages, shared both ways. That’s why GeoPoll tapped into the Meta App to provide a new research mode, loaded with benefits, for our clients to conduct surveys.

Here’s to a great 2022!

We are happy to celebrate 2021 and wish to thank our staff, clients, and community of respondents for enabling us to take significant steps forward this year. We wish you and your families an even greater 2022, and are ready to serve you with your various research needs. To learn more about our research methodologies or to get a quote for your next research project, please feel free to contact us.

The post GeoPoll’s 2021 Year in Review: Highlights appeared first on GeoPoll.

This increase was primarily influenced by the restrictions placed on traditional retail stores that led to the reduction of in-store shopping by 30%. While many sectors of the economy were crippled by varying degrees of lockdown in 2020, online retailers experienced a boom in sales as South Africans avoided shopping malls and stores in favor of home deliveries. According to Stats SA, the market share of online retail in South Africa grew to 2.8% in 2020, double the percentage in 2018.

While COVID-19 had a role to play, this surge is expected to grow. Much like how the pandemic changed research for the long term, more South Africans got acquainted with shopping online, experienced the convenience of shopping online and may be shopping online more going forward.

According to a Deloitte study, more than 70% of South Africans are shopping online at least once a month. Most cited convenience, COVID-19, and saving time in that order as their reasons for increased online shopping. In tandem with global online shopping preferences, the report also shows clothing, electronics, footwear, household appliances and health products as the most popular categories among South African online shoppers.

The role of the Mobile Phone

Another factor that has increased the growth of eCommerce in South Africa is the fact that people are becoming more ‘digitally savvy,’ and technology, especially the mobile phone, is slowly taking part of their lives. The majority of people who go online mainly do so using their mobile phones. Cell phones have primarily replaced wallets, as banks, card operators, retailers and communications companies provide alternatives to cash as a means of payment.

A GeoPoll study in February 2020 showed that 45% of South Africans browse the internet on their mobile phones for more than four hours every day. The mobile phone is so integral that over 70% of South Africans access the internet only through the mobile phone.

Due to this reason, the US International Trade Administration advises companies to include mobile optimization in their e-commerce offerings to increase the buying experience.

Is Online Retail the Future in South Africa?

E-Commerce is growing at unprecedented rates in South Africa. Some of this growth has undoubtedly been fueled by the coronavirus pandemic, and while it remains to be seen if the demand will hold up, the expectation is that culture is shifting for the long term.

The increased appetite of South Africans for online shopping has not gone unnoticed by retailers as they seek to offer customers greater freedom and more options to transact. More and more businesses, both small businesses and established retail giants are following the demand and are establishing e-commerce as an essential sales channel.

Also, the rise and rise of mobile and internet penetration is laying the foundation of more day-to-day activities, including shopping, going digital.

For this digital revolution to be completed, however, the players in the market need to innovate and invest in overcoming the challenges that belabor the e-commerce sector in South Africa. Data costs remain incredibly high, residential addressing system is not well defined, and access infrastructure such as internal road and rail system is not up to par.  Insecurity also remains high, and many South Africans still have trust issues with shopping and paying remotely.

Once these challenges are met, e-commerce in South Africa should be able to break the ceiling and achieve the immense opportunity it holds.

Track e-Commerce and other Retail Metrics with GeoPoll

Retail, in all forms, is highly reliant on data to make actionable decisions and business moves. GeoPoll has worked with major retail players in South Africa and worldwide to collect on-the-ground, actionable insights to drive sales, customer satisfaction, audience measurement, the success of marketing campaigns and other key performance indicators. If you would like to learn more about GeoPoll Consumer Research, please contact us here.

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mPharma – A mHealth tool for Africans

mPharma is a startup electronic pharmaceutical platform developed for African countries that is available on desktop and mobile. Healthcare providers, pharmacies, and insurance companies use the mPharma platform to source prescription drugs at a more reasonable cost than any other drug sources, and no payments are required up-front. This model is aimed to alleviate financial barriers that are inhibiting Africans from accessing life-saving healthcare treatments.

mPharma also has a free mobile application for healthcare-seeking patients. This app, which is called Mutti, allows patients to pay for medications using mobile money, with only a small amount of money required upfront. The rest of the cost can be paid back incrementally on a flexible timeline.

In a time when medical resources are limited due to a pandemic, mPharma’s platform for healthcare providers and patients is incredibly important. Accessibility of medication for the treatment of non-coronavirus related health issues is integral to keeping valuable space available in hospitals for patients that need emergency care.

Well Beyond – An educational mobile app for Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene

Well Beyond, short for “well beyond water”, is a free mobile application that emerged as an educational tool in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The mobile application provides people living in with practical knowledge and hygiene recommendations for staying protected from the coronavirus. The app is unique because the hygiene recommendations are specifically designed for people with minimal resources available and the app’s content explains how to use available resources as effectively as possible.

To reach people that don’t own smartphones, Well Beyond partners with NGOs. These partnerships allow Well Beyond to train the NGO staff on-the-ground in vulnerable communities on how to best educate residents on how to prevent the spread of coronavirus. The trainings are optimized for the specific region the NGO staff are working in and take into consideration what resources residents have access to, which informs action plans the NGO staff can recommend to the vulnerable communities.

Contact Tracing Apps—Go.Data by the World Health Organization

The World Health Organization worked with the Global Outbreak Response Network, as well as other partners, to develop a mobile application called Go.Data. Although a contact tracing app, Go.Data is not the same Bluetooth-to-Bluetooth tracker that is popular in advanced economies. The Go.Data app actually facilities public health workers, called Contact Tracers, who battle the spread of highly infectious viruses on-the-ground in outbreak hot spots.

Contact Tracers in this context work in LMICs going door-to-door screening for symptoms, collecting data, and tracking down anyone who may have been exposed in order to curb the spread. Until Go.Data, Contact Tracers used pen and paper for every aspect of the job, which was time-consuming. Go.Data speeds up the process significantly, which is of paramount importance during outbreaks of highly contagious diseases.

The app has already proven quite effective. Go.Data was released in September of 2019 and was used in managing the Ebola outbreak in the DRC and has been used successfully in the Maldives combatting the spread of Coronavirus.

GeoPoll’s Mobile Research Platform

GeoPoll’s  mobile research platform is also fighting against coronavirus in emerging markets. Our unique survey research methodology utilizes mobile phones for remote data collection, which is the quickest and safest way for development and humanitarian aid organizations to conduct research during this crisis. Since the pandemic began, our platform has conducted 2,409,077  interviews across 88 countries and the resulting data has informed countless decisions. To learn more about how GeoPoll’s data collection platform can be a resource for your organization, contact us today.

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Although the spread of diseases, like Ebola, have emphasized the need for the development of long-term global WASH solutions in the past, the coronavirus pandemic has created unprecedented urgency for solutions to be created now. Sometimes though, urgency brings a challenge that can drive the most meaningful innovation. In today’s post, we will highlight a few examples of how the pandemic drove innovative solutions to bring WASH resources to vulnerable populations.

Pedal Operated Handwashing Machines

A 9-year-old boy in Western Kenya was inspired during the coronavirus pandemic to create a simple machine to assist in safe hygiene practices. The machine adapts a simple container-based handwashing station to be foot-pedal operated for dispensing soap and water. The invention allows users to wash their hands without ever touching any of the station’s surfaces with their hands, which allows for the minimal transmission of germs and encourages frequent hand washing.

Thatched Roof Sanitation and Hygiene Huts in Rural Nigeria

An educational program lead by the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) was quickly followed by the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic for Mr. Sesugh Iorkyoor, a man living in rural Nigeria where access to WASH is minimal. Empowered by the education he received from WSSCC, Mr. Iorkyoor decided to build a sanitary latrine for his family to use; then, as the coronavirus spread, he added a hygiene station to the outside of the latrine to protect himself and his family from illnesses. The facility is a single-person, cylindrical structure with a thatch roof and clay walls that house a latrine inside and a handwashing station on the outside. Since Iorkyoor constructed his first sanitation and hygiene hut, he has been able to convince other members of the community to follow suit.

Increasing Access to Handwashing in a Pandemic: Safe Hands Kenya

Safe Hands Kenya (SHK) was created in response to the need to curb the spread of the coronavirus in Kenya. Founded by Dalberg and KOKO Networks, Safe Hands Kenya is made up of over 30 local, private companies and social enterprises that have banded together to disseminate sanitation resources in Kenya.

Participant organizations have paused profit-seeking and shifted focus solely to distributing soap, handwashing stations, and masks at no cost to the consumer. Beyond this, SHK is disinfecting public spaces and educating Kenyans on the importance of each person doing their part to curb the spread of the virus through frequent handwashing and wearing masks. The educational campaign is being promoted through the hashtag #TibaNiSisi, which means “We are the Cure” in Swahili. The campaign is focused on empowering Kenyans to understand that their actions can protect them and their loved ones from COVID-19. The organization has prioritized working first in areas of Kenya with the most vulnerable populations, like the densely populated urban centers comprised of mostly low income, informal workers.

WASH Sector Innovations During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Creating solutions to complex problems under intense pressure, like that of the coronavirus, can be daunting but also can lead to meaningful and long-lasting progress. The important work that we discussed in this post provides just a few examples of how humans around the world are coming together during the coronavirus pandemic to increase access to hygiene resources for vulnerable populations. Additionally, without a timeline on when a vaccine will be available, there is still valuable time left for more innovative solutions to be created.

At GeoPoll, we strongly believe in utilizing our resources and know-how as data collection experts to assist in times of humanitarian crisis. For this reason, we have publicly released results from various studies conducted during the coronavirus crisis to facilitate organizations in their humanitarian work. Our studies include results on handwashing frequency, quarantining behavior, concern surrounding the virus, and even how the crisis has affected finances for people in sub-Saharan Africa. Please contact us if you have any questions about the studies or capabilities for future projects.

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Now, with the global coronavirus pandemic and oil crisis that are expected to push SSA into a recession, the steps taken to stimulate the region’s economies are even more critical than they were only six months ago. The pressure on sub-Saharan Africa has drastically increased. An area that has focused on growth alone must now face a daunting economic recovery.

To face such a challenge, SSA will need to use the limited resources available as efficiently as possible. This need for efficiency is what has electrification on development experts’ minds as a critical tactic for sub-Saharan Africa to pull itself back up economically. In this post, we will explore why the electrification of SSA is more crucial than ever before.

Unreliable Electricity’s Impact on Sub-Saharan Africa

Despite progress in the electrification of SSA, more than 600 million people are still without electricity, and the available electricity is costly and unreliable. According to Energy for Growth, an organization focused on energy poverty, African companies average being without power for 50 hours per month. Such outages have cost companies as much as 31% in their sales.

The lack of reliability at this capacity increases business costs and creates uncertainty surrounding overhead expenses for business owners; this makes being a business owner less accessible and desirable. In turn, it affects how many jobs business owners can provide. A World Bank report on Africa as a whole claimed that power outages in the continent limited employment opportunities in highly skilled jobs by 35-41% and limited self-employment by 32-47%. Additionally, research has shown that costly and unreliable energy is one of the primary limitations for job creation for almost every country in Africa.

Electrification for Industrialization

Although electrification can create job opportunities that are crucial for economic recovery, this is due primarily to electrification’s role in industrialization. Industrial processes require human labor, but, more importantly, industrial processes require large amounts of energy to function.

Reliable and cost-effective energy for manufacturers would positively impact SSA’s economy because it would allow for increased production volumes, profit margins, and job availability. Additionally, industrialization can bring an increase in self-reliance for economies and present opportunities for international trade—both of which are positive for economic recovery. Beyond this, manufacturing can also help a nation accumulate capital, which can be re-invested back into long-term economic growth tactics.

Electrification for Healthcare

Electrification is necessary to stimulate job creation and capital accumulation for economies in SSA, but without a healthy population of citizens, electrification can only go so far in aiding economic recovery. In order to combat the coronavirus pandemic, healthcare facilities in SSA need electricity. Only about 60% of healthcare facilities in the region have electricity. Out of the minority of facilities with electricity, only 34% of hospitals and 28% of other healthcare facilities have reliable electricity. Even if a vaccine for the virus is just around the corner, healthcare facilities without reliable electricity will not be able to keep vaccines cold—which will mean coronavirus can threaten the lives of populations in SSA until the problem is solved.

Takeaways of Reliable Electricity Access for Economic Recovery

Sub-Saharan Africa faces an upward battle to recover from the economic impact that coronavirus has had on the region. Experts have spoken out on the various tactics SSA could use to grow economically for years now, but the recession has increased the pressure to change quickly. When seeking solutions to economic recovery, the increase in access and reliability of electricity presents multi-prong benefits that make the tactic a potentially powerful use of limited resources.

At GeoPoll, we specialize in remote data collection in areas of the world that are hard to reach through traditional methods. For this reason, we conduct monitoring and evaluation campaigns for a variety of development organizations. Projects like these track progress of development initiatives, like the expansion of electricity access and reliability. To learn more about our research capabilities, contact us today.

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