As mobile phone ownership rates haverisen dramatically in Africa, there has been increasedinterest in using mobile telephones as a data collectionplatform. This note draws on two largely successful pilotprojects in Tanzania and South Sudan that used mobile phonesfor high-frequency data collection. Data were collected on awide range of topics and in a manner that wascost-effective, flexible, and rapid. Once households wereincluded in the survey, they tended to stick with it:respondent fatigue has not been a major issue. Whileattrition and nonresponse have been challenges in theTanzania survey, these were due to design flaws in thatparticular survey, challenges that can be avoided in futuresimilar projects. Ensuring use of the data to demand betterservice delivery and policy decisions turned out to be aschallenging as collecting the high-quality data. Experiencesin Tanzania suggest that good data can be translated intopublic accountability, but also demonstrate that justputting data out in the public domain is not enough. Thisnote discusses lessons learned and offers suggestions forfuture applications of mobile phone surveys in developingcountries, such as those planned for the World Bank's"Listening to Africa" initiative.
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