In October 2009 the Total Sanitation and Sanitation Marketing (TSSM) project piloted a short message service (SMS)-based sanitation monitoring system in East Java, Indonesia.
By using the system to improve the flow of information about the Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) triggering process from the community- to the district level, Indonesians will also be able to improve monitoring results of the CLTS program.
Each designated health officer or sanitarian periodically sends text messages comprising the baseline and progress data – such as the number of households with newly constructed latrines – to an SMS gateway or server, which automatically updates the TSSM progress monitoring instrument.
So far the trial has been successful in that the conversion of SMSs into the digital monitoring format worked well without errors, updates have been in real-time without the need for data entry or editing, and the system has been stable and compatible with any computer system.
Outputs from the trial [were to] be shared with all sanitarians in the TSSM project at a meeting in November 2009. The system is expected to be replicated by the entire 29 districts in the province. TSSM aims to help 1.4 million additional people in all districts of East Java gain effective access to improved sanitation.
Contact: Jan-Willem Rosenboom, Water and Sanitation Program, East Asia and the Pacific Regional Office (WSP-EAP), Indonesia, e-mail: wspeap [at] worldbank.org
Source: WSP Access, Dec 2009
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