Methodology: Comparing Mobile Text & Faceto-Face Survey Performance
In late 2012 and through 2013, six of ten households were food insecure.
The Challenge of Humanitarian Access in North Kivu According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, large sections of North Kivu province were entirely inaccessible or highly restricted as of May 2013.6 Owing to frequent security hazards and incidents, convoys or armed escorts were mandatory for UN agencies on all roadways in the province, beyond the immediate vicinity of the provincial capital, Goma. Using a mobile text survey platform would mitigate some of these risks by dispensing with face-to-face interactions for some primary data collection tasks. According to past WFP surveys in North Kivu (2011 and 2013), approximately half of households own a mobile phone in the province. Mobile phone coverage does not extend to the more remote areas of North Kivu, while poverty constitutes a barrier to mobile phone ownership in the province’s more deprived households.
This article’s methodology relies on three strands. First, a comparative assessment of data quality is made, comparing data produced through face-to-face and mobile text surveys. The exercise is needed to validate the results of mobile text surveys with those obtained through legacy face-to-face processes. Second, we compare cost and timeliness of both survey types. Third, user-friendliness of the mobile survey is studied by analyzing survey process indicators. Face-to-Face Surveys in North Kivu WFP carries out regular face-toface surveys in North Kivu. For the purpose of this exercise, we use the results obtained during the March/April 2013 emergency food security assessment (n= 2,713 households) as a comparator for the mobile text surveys rounds. In the March and April face-to-face survey, respondent households were selected as per the WFP guidelines (2009), through twostage cluster sampling. The survey included modules on household demographics, assets, income, expenditure, food consumption, coping, and shocks. The assessment report disaggregated results for North Kivu’s nine territoires. In this face-to-face survey, all respondents were asked whether they owned mobile phones. The analysis presented hereafter therefore compares mobile text
2013-2014 ◆ VOLUME IX
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