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Mobile-CCT

Requirements for a Mobile Information System to support an Educational CCT Program

in Northern Nigeria

Eric Gerelle

1 January 2009

Page ii

Table of ContentsTable of Contents....................................................................................................................................... ii

Revision History........................................................................................................................................... ii

1. Introduction......................................................................................................................................... 1

1.1 Purpose........................................................................................................................................... 1

1.2 Intended Audience.......................................................................................................................... 1

1.3 Project Scope.................................................................................................................................. 1

1.4 CCT Pilot Project............................................................................................................................ 1

1.5 Project Timetable............................................................................................................................ 2

1.6 References...................................................................................................................................... 2

2. Mobile-CCT Requirements.................................................................................................................. 3

2.1 Targeting & Enrolment.................................................................................................................... 4

2.2 Mobile Payment.............................................................................................................................. 5

2.3 Monitoring & Evaluation.................................................................................................................. 6

2.4 Operating Environment and Constraints.........................................................................................7

2.5 Assumptions and Dependencies.....................................................................................................8

2.6 Pilot Locations................................................................................................................................. 9

3. Mobile-CCT Use Cases.....................................................................................................................10

3.1 Household Targeting..................................................................................................................... 10

3.2 Applicant Enrolment......................................................................................................................11

3.3 Cash Payments............................................................................................................................. 12

3.4 Compliance Reporting..................................................................................................................13

3.5 Case Management........................................................................................................................13

3.6 Monitoring & Evaluation................................................................................................................14

4. Mobile-CCT Model............................................................................................................................. 15

4.1 Selection Model............................................................................................................................ 15

4.2 Impact Model................................................................................................................................ 17

Revision History

Name Date Reason For Changes Version

Mobile-CCT Requirements 7 December 2008 First Draft 1

Mobile-CCT Requirements 1 January 2009 Kano Meeting Inputs 2

ii

Mobile-CCT for Northern Nigeria

1. Introduction

1.1 Purpose

This document describes the requirements for Mobile-CCT, a mobile phone platform to support conditional

cash transfer programmes in Kano State and eventually across Nigeria. Mobile-CCT is a component that

integrates with the CCT management Information System as well as the Education information systems of

the State of Kano and the Federal Government of Nigeria.

1.2 Intended Audience

The document is intended for officials of the Education Ministries of Kano Sate, World Bank, DFID, UNICEF

and potential suppliers and users of mobile solutions to support the Kano State CCT Program including

developers, project managers and operating staff.

1.3 Project Scope

Kano State and the World Bank have agreed to conduct a scoping mission in mid December 2008, to design

a pilot Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) ‘demand side intervention’, indicatively it is proposed to target girls’

enrolment in school. This requirements document is in support of this initiative and is intended to provide a

report on the possible uses of mobile phone to support the Kano State CCT project (Mobile-CCT) and

initiatives such as ESSPIN and the suite of SLP programmes supporting Kano State.

1.4 CCT Pilot Project

The CCT program in Northern Nigeria will be implemented for a 3 years, with impact/results to be tracked in

each of the 3 years. The programme would need to track the students until the all of the cohort complete

JS3. A cash performance bonus will be awarded for completing the pilot. This award will be deposited into a

savings account in the name of the girl to be presented at the end of 3 years of participation in the pilot.

Subject to confirmation of budgets from target funding sources, the pilot is proposed to cover a maximum of

10,000 households in Kano State and 10,000 households in Bauchi State.

The conclusions of this requirements analysis are that the use of mobile technology to support CCT is a

realistic opportunity in Nigeria. The recommendation for the pilot is to start by deploying monitoring and

evaluation applications which are easy to build and have a direct educational impact in the schools. This

should be followed by the deployment of mobile payment applications in cooperation with Nigerian banks.

The final development should be to build household survey tools as part of impact analysis.

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1.5 Project Timetable

The timetable for the first year of the pilot project is as follows: the pilot programme is as follows:

January-March 2009. Detailed design including preparation of the main design proposal, impact evaluation

design, design of the operations manual, development of the MIS including requirements, institutional

arrangements, and training design.

April-June 2009. Implementation including communications, MIS testing, and confirmation of institutional

arrangements. Targeting and identification of beneficiaries, baseline field work, enrollment of beneficiaries.

These will be preceded by the communications phase.

July-August 2009. Continuing communications, community preparation, and training of CCT stakeholders.

Recalibration of the MIS, adjustments of operations manuals, preparation of final guidelines.

September-December 2009. First cash grants to be awarded at the beginning of the school year in

September 2009. Roll-out will be preceded by communications strategy to ensure buy-in of the main

stakeholders.

December 2009. First impact evaluation report and process evaluation reports

1.6 References

The following papers provide useful background to understanding this report as well as previous CCT

programs and their implementation:

World Bank World Bank report on Selected World Development Indicators

Jones (1997) On the Evolution of the World Income Distribution

Cambodia CCT Girls Education Manual (2005)

Filmer-Schady (2006). Cambodia Getting Girls into School.

Filmer-Schady (2008). Cambodia CCT Sibling Effects

Fiszbein (2007). Helping reduce poverty in the short- and long-term: The experience of Conditional

Cash Transfers

Fiszbein and Schady (2008) PPT--- CCT Policy Review. HD Forum

Unicef Information sheet on Girl’s education in Nigeria

Garcia (2007, 2008) Going to Scale, International Experience in Designing and Implementing

Conditional Cash Grants

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2. Mobile-CCT RequirementsThis section describes the context and origin of the idea to use mobile phones to support conditional cash

transfers in education. Mobile-CCT is a component of a larger CCT MIS to support education in Kano State.

The bottom line question for Mobile-CCT is how can it support the MIS by facilitating the collection and

dissemination of data when and where conventional information technology are not be readily available. The

CCT business processes to be supported by Mobile-CCT are represented in the following diagram.

The Mobile-CCT system divides naturally into three different applications. The requirements for these

applications are summarized below.

Targeting & Enrolment Promoting the CCT Program

Identifying target communities

Collecting household data to see if the eligibility criteria are met

Collecting related socio-economic data

Entering child enrolment data

Mobile Payments Checking if conditions for transfer have been satisfied

Distributing cash payments in various locations and possibly on demand

Monitoring and Evaluation Monitoring child attendance, child performance,

Monitoring teacher and school performance

Case Management and Compliance

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2.1 Targeting & Enrolment

The Mobile-CCT should support CCT targeting and enrolment processes. Mobile devices can be used in the

planning phase and for community and household surveys. The following data is required to be collected and

stored in the MIS during the planning phase of the project

Poverty Map to select Local Government Areas (LGAs)

School-level data on enrolment and drop-out rates

School mapping to determine school locations.

Household education expenditure data from USAID (to determine the size of the transfer

Mobile-CCT needs to be able to make this planning information available may be updated from the field

using mobile devices. The following data will be collected for each school in the pilot program.

Name of school

Address of school---what location and LGA

EMIS code of the school

Distance of school from the LGA center in kilometers

GPS location of the school--longitude, latitude

Name of school principal-headmaster and mobile phone number,

Enrollment by grade, by gender (primary 1 to 6 for primary schools, JS 1 to JS3 for JS schools, SS1

to SS3 for SS schools),

Number of teachers

Number of non-teaching staff

Number of classrooms

Name of SBMC chairman and cell phone

Mobile phone network coverage (yes/no, what mobile phone carrier, number of teachers who own

mobile phones).

The following information will have to be collected by the Mobile-CCT system to support targeting and enrolment:

The hard condition for receiving benefits is attendance at School

80% school attendance

Information on soft conditions will need to be collected as well:

Pass mark (50%) as reflected in report cards and end of year exams

Girl with birth certificate within 6 months of enrolment

Younger siblings with under 5-cards showing utilization of services (immunization, growth monitoring,

promotion)

Mother attending ante and post natal classes

Mother and father/guardian attending awareness creation sessions including community dialogues

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2.2 Mobile Payment

Mobile phones should enable cash disbursement to targeted individuals, groups or communities within the

project. Pay-outs could also be implemented using ATMs via a cash card provided by a bank if required. A

mobile solution would complement the ATM channel by allowing authorized Payment Service Provider (PSP)

to distribute the cash as well as a bank. This would extend the range of the CCT program to locations where

ATMs are not available or when they are out of order.

The following is an overview of the requirements for mobile payment based on messaging:

Electronic vouchers (VINs) to be sent to a mobile phone once pre-set criteria have been met

The payments to be authorized by a committee (field rep) in each LGA using a mobile phone

When the VIN is presented the PSP transfers the cash after using tailored ID verification procedures

This scheme is network operator and handset agnostic and requires no special kit or software

deployment required

It is highly scalable and can be rolled out to further programs and countries quickly and easily

The solution can be extended to support inbound remittances

Two levels two levels of cash benefit will be implemented. The first level is equivalent to $100 per year per

child and the second equivalent to $50 per child per year. The testing of two levels will help inform policy

decisions in the process of scaling up the CCT programme. This level of benefit is roughly 16% of Nigeria’s

GDP/capita in 2007, and about 30 to 40% of the per capita expenditures (income) in Kano and Bauchi. This

corresponds to about $1 per day for 200 school days in a school year, or roughly 115 Naira per school day.

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2.3 Monitoring & Evaluation

The monitoring and evaluation part of Mobile-CCT needs to provide continuous information that will help

decision makers answer the following questions:

1) Does the CCT program improve attendance rates among girls?

2) Does the CCT program improve retention/completion rates among girls in primary and junior

secondary school?

3) Does the CCT program improve transition rates of girls from primary to junior secondary school?

4) Does the impact of the CCT program differ by quality of current education supply? (In both states a

number of local government areas (LGAs) currently receive school inputs from donor agencies (WB,

DFID, UNICEF).

5) What targeting strategy is most cost-effective in increasing girls’ enrolment/ retention? (Community

vs. individual targeting)

6) What minimum cash benefit amount can induce/ stimulate enrolment and retention ($1 per school

day or $0.50 per school day)?

In addition the monitoring and evaluation part of the Mobile-CCT needs to be able to collect information on

the effect of the CCT on individuals, families and society.

Individual/family change Progressive increase in knowledge and understanding

Changes in perceived risk, emotion, beliefs, subjective norms

Changes in attitudes and intentions

Improved practices

Improved self image, social influence

Social change Change in social norms

Increasing engagement, empowerment

Information sharing equity

Equity in participation

Sense of self-determination and ownership

Increase in social cohesion

UNICEF has demonstrated that children can participate successfully in monitoring processes. There is an

opportunity to use mobile technology as an aid to education Why not teach the children to collect attendance

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data in schools and record the results on mobile phones? This would provide a great teaching aid as well as

a way of ensuring process data quality.

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2.4 Operating Environment and Constraints

One of the major opportunities for mobile technology is collecting data from the field and giving feedback to

the field. The operating environment is one in which access to conventional information technology is limited.

The CCT program can benefit fro mobile technology if the following are satisfied:

Processes to pass information generated by the MIS back to teachers, parents and children thus

improving the local governance and chances of success

Simple quantitative models to represent attendance and performance and the impact of the CCT on

these

Intuitive mobile interfaces to deliver information back to the field

Mobile Banking consists of performing balance checks, account transactions, payments and others

transaction services via mobile devices. Mobile-CCT in Nigeria needs to take into consideration the state of

mobile banking in the country. There is an opportunity to partner with a bank or phone operator to jointly

develop and test mobile payment services in remote communities.

Interswitch offers mobile payments through 8 regular banks and 5 microfinance banks (MFB)

Mobile services are available from Zenith Bank, UBA, GTBank, Diamond and Intercontinental Banks

Low MFB penetration in north but major banks are required to have branches in all LGAs

Mobile phone operator about to launch mobile accounts with scratch card deposits

The key challenges in developing mobile banking applications include coverage, interoperability and

application distribution

The following design and implementation constraints need to be considered and will limit the options

available to the developers of Mobile-CCT.

Nigeria is a cash economy

Very large unbanked communities with no access to basic payment services

Mobile phones a major success in Nigeria 80% country coverage

95% of airtime in Nigeria is pre-paid

Relatively high density of mobile phones but older models

Most handsets would be able to support cash transfer

Selection, targeting, monitoring and evaluation would require Java-enabled handsets

Banks are located in all Local Government Authorities and are used by the schools

Mobile-CCT needs to be integrated with the banking system

Card solutions require access to bank ATMs and associated distribution mechanisms

Postal service is unreliable and power generation and distribution frustrates every aspect of daily life

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2.5 Assumptions and Dependencies

The first assumption for Mobile-CCT is that there is adequate coverage in the areas where the programme

will be operating. The following carriers, systems that or will be are operating in Nigeria1

Celtel Nigeria Ltd (Celtel Nigeria Ltd (Zain)) GSM 900/1800 Live3G 2100 Planned

Emerging Markets Telecommunication Services Ltd (EMTS) GSM 900/1800 Planned

Globacom Ltd. (Glo Mobile) GSM 900/1800 Live

MTN Nigeria Communications Limited GSM 900/1800 Live

Nigerian Mobile Telecommunications Limited (M-TEL) (Mtel) GSM 900/1800 Live

The following map for MTN gives an idea of the level of the cell phone coverage across Nigeria and around

Kano:

1 http://www.gsmworld.com/roaming/gsminfo/cou_ng.shtml

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2.6 Pilot Locations

Selection of pilot sites will be based on the readiness of LGAs. There are 46 LGAs in of Kano State.

9 LGAs have been identified so far in SESP for Kano State. In addition 8 plus 10 other LGAs have been

identified by ESSPIN and a number of GEP LGAs in Bauchi State. The locations of the nine LGAs in Kano

are shown in the following map:

The populations, longitudes and latitudes of these LGAs are summarized in thee following table:

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3. Mobile-CCT Use CasesThe use cases describe the processes that will involve the use of Mobile-CCT.

3.1 Household Targeting

Summary Description: Geographic and household targeting.

Application of eligibility criteria: yes/no and ranking.

Field verification: community validation

End product: list of eligible and prioritized applicants.

Targeting through communities and schools using poverty mapping

All girls in grades 4 to 6 within the target schools will be eligible for CCT. Individual girls will be targeted in poor communities with high-drop-out rate---using proxy means tests (PMT), supported by community validation to correct for inclusion or exclusion errors.

Include other vulnerability criteria such as girls in female-headed households, orphans and vulnerable children, and preference for those with disability.

Priority of Mobiles: Medium

Use Frequency: Annual community and household survey

Direct Actors: Community Committees

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Main Scenario:

3.2 Applicant Enrolment

Summary Description: The enrolling of applicants into the CCT program involves the following steps:

Invitation to eligible/selected applicants.

Verification of documents.

Training / information about rules of the program.

Signing of the agreement.

End product: List of beneficiaries.

Priority of Mobiles: High

Use Frequency: Annual enrolment

Direct Actors: School officials

Heads of household

Applicants

Main Scenario:

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3.3 Cash Payments

Summary Description: Making cash payments to households

Calculation of the payment with given deductions in case of no compliance.

Transfer of money to PSP and list of beneficiaries with amounts to be paid.

Payments made

Report on payments

End product: List of beneficiaries paid and not paid.

The following legislation will need to be checked to see if there are any restrictions on the use of mobile technology for effecting mobile payments

Wireless Telegraphy Act 1990

Electronic Media Deregulation Act 1992

National IT Policy, Nigeria 2001

Nigeria Communications Act 2003

Computer Security & Protection Bill


Use Frequency: Three times per school year—one payment for each of three school terms.

During piloting, other payment frequencies will be tested—for example monthly.

To be decided during the detailed design phase.

Direct Actors: Payment Service Providers (PSP)

Schools

Community Organizations

Banks, Insurance Companies, Telecoms Companies

Big local vendor/trader

Custodians of SBMC bank accounts

Main Scenario: To be specified during detailed design

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3.4 Compliance Reporting

Summary Description: Reporting on compliance with eligibility conditions

Compliance: attendance, checkups, training according to schedule.

Collection of information to verify conditions.

Transportation of information.

Data entry in the MIS.

End product: Reports on compliance - list of beneficiaries who did/did not comply with conditions.


Use Frequency: Ongoing

Direct Actors: Beneficiary organized groups


3.5 Case Management

Summary Description: Managing exceptions and changes

Appeals: (eligibility, compliance, payment): Reception, resolution of the case, data entry in the MIS to update information.

Household Changes (new born child, death of a beneficiary, death of mother/family representative): Reception, verification of documents that justify the change, data entry in the MIS to update information

Risk Cases: (non compliance): Identification of the case via MIS, visit to the household, identification of actions to be taken, information entered in the MIS

End product:

List of resolved cases (appeals).

Risk cases attended



Direct Actors: Community Committees

Beneficiary organized groups for appeals and HH changes


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3.6 Monitoring & Evaluation

Summary Description: Monitoring project indicators and evaluation of service delivery

Monitoring whether the project cycle implemented as planned

Monitoring indicators including time performance for activities, execution of activities as planned

Stakeholders’ consultations using interviews, questionnaires, focus groups, participation, understanding of the procedures

Process evaluation of service delivery

Output indicators including number of transfers, beneficiaries

Stakeholders’ consultations using interviews, questionnaires, focus group, quality of service delivery, demand and supply

Cost effectiveness and execution efficiency of the program

Indicators including administrative cost/transfer, number of households/unit administrative cost

Impact evaluation of the project actions/benefits affecting the HH welfare

Outcome indicators (nutrition levels, dropout levels, school performance, HH consumption levels, etc)

End product: Retrofitting reports



Direct Actors: Executing unit and/or external operational auditors

Focus groups

Executing unit with the help of external consultants

External firm for evaluation

Community Committees and Beneficiary Organized Groups for program performance and provision of services


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4. Mobile-CCT ModelThe Mobile-CCT model is a formal representation of the variables used by the Mobile-CCT system. The

reason for including the model here is that mobile devices will need to collect information to drive the model

and distribute information generated by the model. The variables have been identified through examples

previous programs that have been operating in several countries, some for almost 10 years. The Mobile-CCT

model has two components: a Selection Model which supports the Targeting and Enrolment processes and

an Impact Model to support the Monitoring and Evaluation processes.

4.1 Selection Model

The Selection Model drives the Targeting and Enrolment processes. The objective of the Selection Model is

to identify communities to implement the program as well as define the criteria for selecting individual

candidates. One of the components of the selection is a proxy means test that can be used to infer average

consumption levels of households. This is done using a regression analysis to relate the log annual per

capita income to a set of variables describing household demographic and asset characteristics. This proxy

means testing method has been described by Garcia in ‘Going to Scale, International Experience in

Designing and Implementing Conditional Cash Grants’2

In the particular case of Northern Nigeria, the focus of the program is to encourage greater school

attendance by girls in grades 4-63. The graph represents data on age-specific enrolment rates for females

and males aged 5-25 in Kano State drawn from Nigerian Federal Ministry of Education Statistics4

2 http://www.hsrc.ac.za/research/projects/20050627_3.pdf3 CCT Aide Memoire ,Joint World Bank-DFID-ESSPIN-Unicef Partners Mission, December 20084 CCT Kano Orientation, December 2008

17


The data seems to follow the profile of a Gamma distribution5, which has a scale parameter θ and a shape

parameter k. If k is an integer then the distribution represents the sum of k independent exponentially

distributed random variables, each of which has a mean of θ. Based on this one can interpret the shape

parameter s for the female and male enrolments as reasons for dropping out of school. From the fit of the

Gamma distribution (male k=4, female k=6) to the data one can conclude that there are four main reasons for

boys to drop out of school and two additional reasons for girls to drop out of school. The project needs to

identify these reasons for dropout and include them in both the selection process and the monitoring and

evaluation process.

The following are some of reasons cited by UNICEF for girls in Northern Nigeria not attending or dropping

out of school6,7

Engagement

o Lack of awareness of importance of girl child education

o Lack of community involvement

o Lack of role models for girls

Education

o Insufficient women teachers

o Lack of adequately trained teaching staff

o Curriculum not reflecting gender sensitivity

Environment

o Lack of girl-friendly school environment that enhances the participation of girls

o clean environment, water pumps, separate latrines for boys and girls

Economic

o Inability to pay for school uniform

o Parents requesting child to drop out and work so that they can support them

o Cost of instruction materials, books and school bags

From this list it can be seen that supply side issues are as important as the purely economic ones on the

demand side that the CCT programs address. It would be worth investigating the coupling of CCT programs

to progress being made on the community engagement, curriculum and staff and girl friendly schools.

Mobile phones could be used to support the identification of communities that are addressing supply side

considerations, through community evaluations to complement the household surveys used for selecting

candidates for the CCT program

5 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_distribution6 http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/nigeria_39351.html7 http://www.unicef.org/wcaro/WCARO_Nigeria_Factsheets_GirlsEducation.pdf

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4.2 Impact Model

The objective of the Impact Model is to use harvested data to estimate the impact of a CCT program in a

country. The Impact Model on based on five key indicators:

1) X = Loge(I), where I is a measure of the per capita income of the target community

2) S = Enrolment Rate

3) T = Ratio of the cash transfer to the measure of the per capita income I

4) D = Impact of the cash transfer on the enrolment rate

5) U = S+T, a utility function for the CCT

.

The above graph is based on data taken from the presentation by Fiszbein8: Helping reduce poverty in the

short- and long-term: The experience of Conditional Cash Transfers. It shows the relation between S and D

for a number of CCT programs. Some countries some appear more than once in the cases that the impact of

CCT was recorded for different grades.

The enrolment rate S and the transfer ratios T can be represented using differential equations in X. These

equations are used to represent how changes in per capita income generate changes in the enrolment rate

and S and the transfer ratio T. Inspection of the published CCT impact data allowed some simple equations

to be used in these representations.

8 http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTINDIA/Resources/Fiszbein.ppt

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The enrolment function S can be generated by the equation dS/dX = kS(1-S). The solutions to this equation

are of the form S(X) = 1/(1+Exp(-k(X-X50%))), where k is the logistic growth rate and X50% is the value of

Loge(I50%) corresponding to S=50%.

The S curves can be used to parameterize the enrolment rates for the different CCT implementations. The S

curves in the following graph are labeled according to the value of the income I50% for each curve’s midpoint.

The value of logistic growth rate k=4 was calculated using the before and after data and taking an average

value for all the CCT implementations. The graphs seem to indicate that the different countries evolve along

different S curves.

Research by Jones9 on the evolution of the world income indicates that over period of a few of decades the

variable X increases linearly with time. Thus we can use X as a proxy for time in the same model to predict

the future level of school attendance.

It should also be noted that similar models can be generated to monitor and represent other indicators such

as usage of health services (in particular immunization and nutrition).

9 http://ideas.repec.org/p/wop/stanec/97009.html

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The model for the transfer ratio T is even simpler. The generating equation is dT/dX= -mT, where m is a

constant. The solution to this equation is of the form T(X) =aExp(-mX), where a is the maximum value of T.

This equation also says that the transfer ratio T decreases with the income to the power –m. In the fit below

m=0.53.

An overall utility of the CCT program can be guaged by combining the short term economic value of the cash

transfer together with the long term value of school attendance. A convenient way to represent this is through

the sum U =S+T. The form of the utility function U is shown in the following graph. Notice that the graph is

dominated by the value of the transfer for the lower incomes and by the school, attendance for the higher

incomes. This could lead to a shift in demand shift from short term benefits to long term benefits as income

increases.

21


The Impact Model’s differential form can be rewritten in terms of the transfer ratio T and D the impact on the

enrolment. The result is the following equation, which can be expressed purely in terms of the per capita

income:

D = kTS(1-S)

The growth rate k need not be a constant and its value can be used as to measure and compare the

efficiency of each CCT program. The formula is simple enough that it can be programmed into a mobile

device and its parameters can be updated easily. The application of the model is represented in the graph

below.

Important NoteThe above graphs are based on data coming from a wide variety of possibly incompatible sources; therefore

improvements can be expected if the model were to be based more consistent or on locally harvested data

rather than the country level estimates used here.

In particular the income data used to represent income were based on the 2001 World Bank report on

Selected World Development Indicators10. This had lead to differences between the values of T used in this

report and some of the values of reported by Fiszbein. A rigorous comparison between the reported impacts

of CCT programs needs to be conducted to ensure that all numbers in the model are comparable.

10 http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPOVERTY/Resources/WDR/English-Full-Text-Report/ch12a.pdf

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