Akvo Really Simple Reporting (RSR) overview
From Akvo Labs
During the last couple of years after discussions with NGOs, banks, funds and development organisations in the water and sanitation sector working with meeting Millenium Development Goals, it has become clear that sophisticated project prospecting, project reporting and monitoring tools are needed to be able to effectively scale up implementation efforts to handle many thousands of projects in parallel. Akvo are developing these tools as Open Source software tools and will also be running an online service which anyone can use, without having to install and maintain these tools on their own servers.
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Akvo RSR usage examples
The following are two cases which attempt to describe how the Akvo RSR system can be used to support the project communications between field operations. The first case is a description of how the Akvo system would be used with the complete project prospecting, reporting, monitoring and project data-mining tools.
The second case is a simpler situation where an NGO and the local government already have identified projects which they are working with, in this case 6000 schools where rainwater harvesting facilities are being installed. But to improve and make the process more effective the Akvo reporting system is used in particular for its SMS reporting capabilities.
Example 1: Complete project prospecting, reporting, monitoring and project data mining
The following is a narrative of how the complete Akvo project prospecting, reporting, monitoring and data-mining system will function.
1. People in the local community working together with a local trusted [1] NGO, MFI or the local government (possibly two or all three working together) identify the need for a water and sanitation project.
2. The NGO, MFI or local government (called the “local organisation”) define the scope, cost and parties involved with implementing the project together with the local community.
3. The local organisation creates a project proposal on the Akvo web site.
4. The project proposal is immediately available on the web site for anyone to view, including to development corporations, NGOs, companies and individuals (donors/lenders) who are funding such projects. Some donors/lenders maybe have set up subscriptions to new projects based on certain criteria and will receive a notification automatically via email or RSS. Donors/lenders may pose questions to the local organisation, clarifying the project proposal.
5. Donors/lenders decided to fund a particular project, or set of projects. They projects are marked as “funded” in the Akvo web site, by whom and how much. The donors/lenders arrange for the funds transfer to the local organisation through traditional means. For individuals, we expect to partner with someone who set up micro-finance facilities similar to Kiva.org’s, or small donations, via PayPal, for example.
6. The local organisation arranges for funds to be available for the local community for the project and initiates the project.
7. A project proposal goes from being a proposal to an active project.
8. For an active project several different reporting tools are available: web based tools for text, picture and video reporting, phone based tools for SMS and MMS reporting. For example a field office may use mobile phone SMS to send in status reports to the Akvo web site. Example: “maintenance training completed. 20 people attended”. The sent SMS is identified to come from a particular phone. Thereby only allowing certain people to add information to specific projects. MMS messages containing photographs may be sent as well.
9. The donors/lenders can monitor the progress of a particular project via the Akvo web site. Questions about the progress of the project can be communicated from the web site to a particular project owner via the web site, email or via SMS. The questions and answers can be retained in the Akvo reporting and monitoring system.
10. When a project is completed and both the lenders/donors and the local organisations are satisfied with the completion of the project it goes from an active project to a completed project.
11. The donors/lenders can rate the project, based on success factors and provide information such as lessons learned. The donors/lenders can also rate the involved local organisations based on criteria such as: responsiveness, knowledge, implementation skills, flexibility etc.
12. The local organisation can rate the project, based on success factors and provide information such as lessons learned. The local organisation can also rate the involved donors/lenders based on criteria such as: active involvement, flexibility, responsiveness, help provided, etc.
13. Organisations can use the Akvo repository of completed projects to compare projects and project approaches to answer questions such as: What works and what doesn’t? Why are certain types of projects successful in some areas and not others? What types of projects have been implemented in a particular area?
Example 2: Project reporting and monitoring
The following is a narrative on how the Akvo system would work where an NGO and the local government already have identified projects which they are working with, in this case 6000 schools where rainwater harvesting facilities are being installed.
1. People in the local community working together with a local field office NGO identify the need for a water and sanitation project.
2. The NGO define the scope, cost and parties involved with implementing the project together with the local community.
3. The local organisation creates a project description on the Akvo web site.
4. The project proposal is immediately available on the web site for the funding/supporting NGO and the local government to view and to add information to.
5. The project is set to be an active project.
6. For an active project several different reporting tools are available: web based tools for text, picture and video reporting, phone based tools for SMS and MMS reporting. For example a field office may use mobile phone SMS to send in status reports to the Akvo web site. Example: “maintenance training completed. 20 people attended”. The sent SMS is identified to come from a particular phone. Thereby only allowing certain people to add information to specific projects. MMS messages containing photographs may be sent as well.
7. The donors/lenders and project supporters can monitor the progress of a particular project via the Akvo web site. Questions about the progress of the project can be communicated from the web site to a particular project owner via the web site, email or via SMS. The questions and answers can be retained in the Akvo reporting and monitoring system.
8. When a project is completed and both the lenders/donors and the local organisations are satisfied with the completion of the project it goes from an active project to a completed project.
9. The donors/lenders and project supporters can rate the project, based on success factors and provide information such as lessons learned.
10. The local organisation can rate the project, based on success factors and provide information such as lessons learned.
Notes
- ↑ A “trusted” NGO, MFI or local government has passed a vetting procedure, reaching a particular level of sophistication with regards to proven knowledge on how to work with water and sanitation issues and ability to handle funds. For more information see the Criteria, roles and procedures for Akvo partners
