Remotely Accessible Instrumented Monitoring of Global Development Programs: Technology Development and Validation

Abstract

Many global development agencies self-report their project outcomes, often relying on subjective data that is collected sporadically and communicated months later. These reports often highlight successes and downplay challenges. Instrumented monitoring via distributed data collection platforms may provide crucial evidence to help inform the sector and public on the effectiveness of aid, and the on-going challenges. This paper presents the process of designing and validating an integrated sensor platform with cellular-to-internet reporting purposely targeted at global development programs. The integrated hardware platform has been applied to water, sanitation, energy and infrastructure interventions and validated through laboratory calibration and field observations. Presented here are two examples: a water pump and a household water filter, wherein field observations agreed with the data algorithm with a linear fit slope of between 0.91 and 1, and an r-squared of between 0.36 and 0.39, indicating a wide confidence OPEN ACCESSSustainability 2013, 5 3289 interval but with low overall error (i.e., less than 0.5% in the case of structured field observations of water volume added to a household water filter) and few false negatives or false positives.

Use, microbiological effectiveness and health impact of a household water filter intervention in rural Rwanda—A matched cohort study

“…In a random subsample of 79 households in Round 1 and 73 households in Round 2, use of the filter was monitored by temporarily replacing the householder's filter with an identical filter fitted with a cellular-reporting SweetSense usage sensor (Thomas et al, 2013b) (Figure 1). …”

“…The usage algorithms have been validated and described elsewhere (Thomas et al, 2013b). Sensor-equipped filters were deployed to households within two weeks after the household survey was conducted.…”

Distributed Inference Condition Monitoring System for Rural Infrastructure in the Developing World

“…Despite the importance of rural infrastructure and the potential impact of predictive monitoring, the implementation of remote condition monitoring systems in these extreme rural settings has historically been limited to data loggers [10], [11]. This is largely due to the technical and logistical challenges, such as battery life, data-transmission bandwidth limitations and long or expensive maintenance cycles, associated with operating in such remote locations.…”

Quantifying Averted Disability-Adjusted Life Years as a Performance Indicator for Water Quality Interventions: A Review of Current Methodologies and Challenges

“…The application of new monitoring technologies to water interventions may allow more cost-effective and measurable results [97]. Remote sensing technologies, via satellite assets and in situ sensors, have been developed and applied to monitoring water supply interventions [98]. A variety of technologies such as water quality sensors and flow meters may be applied to evaluate service quality and use practices, and data can be collected either via satellite, cellular, or wifi networks, or through manual collection by local enumerators.…”