To better understand the opportunity presented by DFS, Digital Square seeks to conduct a landscaping assessment. This assessment will explore the role that DFS could play in the context of efforts to advance financial protection and support improved health system performance across low-resource settings. The assessment will also seek to understand the factors that make these solutions successful and the role that digitization can play in enhancing and leveraging these factors. Ultimately, this work will result in an initial understanding, and set of hypotheses, on the opportunity of DFS for health as well as potential areas for further in-depth research or action. Over a period of 12 weeks, Vital Wave will employ a mixed-methods approach to conduct this landscape assessment. The firm will draw on its 14-year history of working with multinational technology firms, aid agencies, large foundations, and national governments on the application and scale of digital health as well as digital financial services interventions. This has included comprehensive assessments, large-scale implementations in both digital health and digital financial services, and field-building research and thought leadership.
Vital Wave is a professional-services firm specialized in the design and implementation of digital solutions to address large-scale development issues across low- and middle-income countries. Since 2008, Vital Wave has designed solutions, created tools and common goods, led national implementations, and provided thought leadership in digital health for low- and middle-income countries. This work has extended across multiple areas of health, including vaccines, malaria, HIV, tuberculosis, polio, universal healthcare, maternal and child health, and neglected tropical diseases. Within digital health, Vital Wave regularly conducts in-depth and strategic assessments. Likewise, the firm also brings years of developing-country experience in digital financial services. Vital Wave’s end-to-end involvement ranges from market research to solution design, build, and implementation. The firm has a deep knowledge of the range of factors that influence the usability, and accessibility of DFS. For example, Vital Wave assessed the marketplace of digital financial services across Africa, which directly informed the creation of the ADFI. In Somalia, Vital Wave designed and implemented a digital payments system for beneficiaries of humanitarian relief efforts and civil servant workers.
Thus, Vital Wave works across several industry areas so best practices, lessons learned, and assets from a diversity of sectors are incorporated in every project. This cross-pollination leads to more robust solutions with greater impact. For example, in Nigeria, Vital Wave performed a comprehensive landscape assessment of mobile-based payments for health and financial services, leading to a better understanding of use cases and directions for future solutions-based interventions. In addition, Vital Wave manages and facilitates interaction between stakeholders across the entire digital-for-development field as well as regularly contributes to the common goods space. This includes the development of the Beyond Scale guide and facilitating the creation of the Principles of Donor Alignment for Digital Health. Another example within health is the firm’s work on mobile tools for malaria surveillance. In digital financial services, the firm conducted end-user research to identify barriers to adoption, which contributed to the development of the Level One Guidelines. This is complemented by the firm’s ability to produce compelling material for multiple audiences.
Vital Wave will partner with Geopoll, who will design and conduct the mobile-based surveys for the quantitative analysis. Since 2012, GeoPoll has been a leader in providing market research from areas that are difficult to access using traditional methods, conducting over 10 million surveys per year through the mobile phone. Vital Wave will pair this with a team comprised of experts in digital health, digital financial services, strategy development, and stakeholder management. The executive team (comprised on an Executive Strategist and Facilitator, and Executive Oversight) will provide strategic input into key points along the project process, as well as lead the design and execution of the stakeholder convening. An Engagement Manager will lead the strategic direction of the project, manage client communications, and ensure the creation of robust deliverables. They will be supported by additional analysts and executive staff who will provide strategic and technical input. All team members will contribute to the final deliverables.
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Technical feedback
Research considerations: it was unclear how you will identify 1200 research respondents to conduct a mobile phone survey or where these respondents would come from. We recommend elaborating here.
We recommend further consideration of the proposed timeline, as it seems too short - consider feasibility of achieving the research goals in the time allotted. We also suggest that more focus be added around identifying implementation considerations from a research perspective.
Feedback on Application
Have you used this mobile survey method before? If so, how does it compare to traditional case study methods? If not, how will you manage the risks associated with trying out a new approach?