ChildCount+ in Sauri (Millennium Villages Project)
Description
SMS-based mHealth tool (built on RapidSMS, open source, GPL license) piloted since 2009 in Sauri, Siaya County, within the Earth Institute's (Columbia) Millennium Villages Project: community health workers registered by text the status of every child under 5 and pregnant woman (CMAM malnutrition, malaria, immunization, pregnancy monitoring and antenatal appointments), with automatic alerts and reminders. Handsets provided by Sony Ericsson (2009) and a toll-free number with Airtel Kenya. It ended with the closure of the MVP in 2015; the village was not prepared to sustain operations independently.
Lessons learned
1) Funding tied to the project cycle killed the tool: without a plan to transfer it to the public system, digital infrastructure dies with the donor (the MVP concluded in 2015 and the village 'was not prepared to continue operations independently'). 2) The team itself (Kanter et al. 2012) emphasized open standards and interoperability as a condition for replication. 3) The top-down approach with weak community consultation ('lacks consultation and a feedback loop', 'one-size-fits-all solutions to poverty') limited learning and sustainability. Direct contrast with eCHIS: same country, same function, but with government ownership from the design stage.